Nature's entertainment - The Trail will Provide

A rambling walk and talk in the woods on the mountain slopes above the Cloister at Three Creeks. The insect friend was such an unexpected surprise - just had to share. Then there's the 'Crack in the Rock' and a story of tenacity and survival.

It was the time of peak fall color.

These videos and images are not current because the Cloister at Three Creeks is not exactly a hub of internet connectivity.  But the stories nature tells are timeless.

And the woods is just brimming with these amazing little unheralded sagas. Discovering them is such a constant source of entertainment for me; and then sharing them just multiplies the joy.

Fall color deep in the woods - The Cloister at Three Creeks

Here I had a chance to share the peaceful splendor of a restless rambling mountain brook and a nearby trail in HD at the peak of fall color change on two cool fall days, one sunny, the other foggy. The setting is the Blue Ridge Mountains, about a mile from, and 1200 feet in elevation above the Cloister at Three Creeks.

An Appalachian Trail Pilgrimage - Finding the path to eternal life

I left society and went into the woods, settled at the hermitage I call the Cloister at Three Creeks, and spent a lot of time considering life's biggest issues. For a time during fall and early winter 2021-2, I made a number of videos where I was finally able to verbalize my ideas, and these presented in this post are pretty much the heart of them.

Yes, it is perhaps the closest to 'preaching' I come, yet also a necessary part of my personal journey along the 'Way of the Great Stream'.

With these deep, weighty ideas well-seated in my being, I found I was able to move on to much simpler themes--more purely joyful explorations of the places and things that nature was showing me. The process felt like coming through a tunnel and emerging into a 'fresh green country under a swift sunrise' as Tolkien put it.

Welcome to the Cloister at Three Creeks

My home and secluded hermitage retreat since summer 2020 is an off-grid tract of eleven wooded acres surrounded on three sides by noisy mountain creeks. Human sounds are limited to the sound of airplanes and jets above. This professional-quality video produced by my son-in-law presents a comprehensive tour of the grounds and a bit about me - my background and plans for the grounds.