If you’ve followed my work for any length of time, you’ve likely heard me wax poetic about my favorite mountain range.
The San Francisco Peaks — Arizona’s four highest — rise thousands of feet above the surrounding plateau.
This is the Arizona high country, with the plateau standing 7,000 feet above sea level and “The Peaks” — as locals call them — rising to over 12,000 feet.
In this photograph from a June evening in 2014, you can hardly tell it is summer. The previous winter was one of the driest on record, and the grass that should be showing its summer greens remained brown.
And I was undoubtedly rushed in making this phot — driving an empty 14-passenger van back to Flagstaff after a long-day of tour guiding at Grand Canyon — I couldn’t even find a decent foreground subject.
But no matter, it’s the sky that steals the show. With the onset of the summer monsoon, the clouds take on a brooding form, as a dark reflection of the mountain itself.
Astounding, because this sacred mountain is largest thing around. Towering a vertical mile over the surrounding landscape, on a clear day visible over 100 miles away.
And yet, the clouds are bigger. Much bigger. However fleeting, in this moment the clouds absolutely dwarf the mountain. A mass of water vapor suspended in the sky — just imagine the energy and the power it holds.
And above all else, the power to nurture. The grass and trees and — somewhere out there — the animals beg for water, and the clouds hold the power to quench that thirst.
So the clouds may look moody and menacing as they make an extinct stratovolcano look like an ant hill. But they are important. Givers of life, along with the sun rays breaking through the storm and the invisible molecules in the air that we need to breath.
Yet the fate of our planet may be in the hands of wealthy men who prioritize money and power — but not the right type of power — for it is the power of Mother Nature — the nurturing power — that allows us to live our humble little lives on a very special rock floating around the universe.
One day our species may pay the price for our petty greed, while Mother Nature was there all along showing us the way. I hope it doesn’t come to that point, but its harder and harder to ignore as the days go on.
For those of us that see and respect Mother Nature every day, let’s keep the hope alive.
-Jake
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