Pause.

I’m not a hermit. I often welcome the company of others, sometimes I crave it. I like the way ravens preen each other, the thoughtful, intimate touches; the way their beaks sometimes rest against each other. But how striking is the one alone in the sky, cut out of a shadow and suspended above the earth?

The river moves like a procession, like a ceremony. Fringed with cottonwoods, willows, and the abundant scourge of tamarisk, it wears a green shawl as it moves through chili-colored sandstone (ristra-red Wingate) and tumble-down boulders of Chinle banded with rainbow shales. I know the place, not like the back of my hand, not without surprises; but I know how to maneuver, where to sleep, where to find fresh water dripping in the back of a canyon. Things you’d want to grasp when going alone.

How long does it take to cease the chatter of the mind? Forever? Don’t bother trying to stop it. You are not here to be something you’re not. But do take pause when a single strand of spider web blows across the sky, glinting in the sun like the arc of a scythe.

Craig Childs, from "Alone on the Green River"