Readings Shared by Rob Elliott with the Ralph Hopkins Grand Canyon Trip, 2010

When your spirit cries for peace, come to a world of canyons,
deep in an old land; feel the exultation of high plateaus,
the strength of moving waters, the simplicity of sand and grass,
and the silence of growth.   --August Fruge

The longer I live the more beautiful life becomes.    --Frank Lloyd Wright

It is not every day that you walk toward a place you have never been before and feel that you are coming home. --Coolin Fletcher

If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water.   --Loren Eisley

August 13, 1869—We are three quarters of a mile in the depths of the earth, and the great river shrinks into insignificance as it dashes its angry waves against the walls and cliffs that rise to the world above; the waves are but puny ripples, and we but pygmies, running up and down the sands or lost among the boulders.

We have an unknown distance yet to run, an unknown river to explore. What falls there are, we know not; what rocks beset the channel, we know not; what walls rise above the river, we know not. Ah, well! We may conjecture many things. The men talk as cheerfully as ever; jests are bandied about freely this morning; but to me the cheer is somber and the jests are ghastly.    --John Wesley Powell

August 29, 1869—Now the danger is over, now the toil has ceased, now the gloom has disappeared, now the firmament is bounded only by the horizon, and what a vast expanse of constellations can be seen! The river rolls by us in silent majesty; the quiet of the camp is sweet; our joy is ecstasy. We sit ‘till long after midnight talking of the Grand Canyon, talking of home.     --John Wesley Powell

How many more generations will pass before it will have become nearly impossible to be alone even for an hour, to see anywhere nature as she is without man’s improvement upon her? How long will it be before—what is perhaps worse yet—there is no quietness anywhere, no escape from the rumble and the crash, the clank and screech which seem to be the inevitable accompaniment of technology? Only when they began to be scarce… and solitude rather than company had to be sought after, did the great empty spaces become attractive.     --Joseph Wood Crutch

I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do.   --Edward Everett Hale

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart. And try to love the questions themselves.  Do not seek the answers that cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them and the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will grad-ually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.  --Rainer Maria Rilke

If I had my life to live over, I’d dare to make more mistakes next time. I’d relax. I’d limber up. I would be sillier than I have this time. I would take fewer things seriously. I would take more chances. I would take more trips. I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers. I would eat more ice cream and less beans. I would perhaps have more actual troubles, but I’d have fewer imaginary ones.

You see, I’m one of those people who live sensibly and sanely, hour after hour, day after day. Oh, I’ve had my moments and if I had it to do over again, I’d have more of them. In fact, I’d try to have nothing else. Just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead of each day.

I’ve been one of those persons who never goes anywhere without a thermometer, a hot water bottle, a raincoat and a parachute. If I had it to do over again, I would travel lighter than I have. If I had my life to live over, I would start barefoot earlier in the spring and I would stay that way later in the fall. I would go to more dances. I would ride more merry-go-rounds. I would pick more flowers.       --Nadine Starr (…when 85 years old)

The moonlight falling on the opposite wall, the shifting shadows, the deeper recesses which seem half elusive in the waning light; all blend into a truly glorious panorama. Here where the world seems shut out, the spirit and spell of the wilderness still abides, and welcomes one into the full freedom and magic of the huge and thoughtful night, uplifting and swaying the beholder with a sense of being that is delightful past compare. At last I feel that my long cherished hope of going through these great canyons is to have fulfillment, that I have reached the land where dreams come true. --Julius Stone, written at Badger Rapids 1909