Mountains are the scribblings of time on the surface of the land…. Here man does not matter, does not count…The steam, the trout, the mountains, go on with or without me, dancing, as they have for so long, to time’s madder music-rhythms older than interstellar dust.
-Harry Middleton
On the Spine of Time: An Angler’s Love of the Smokies
Have you ever felt you were just another part of nature? Or, in Middleton’s words, “just another expression of life, neither feared, envied, acknowledged, or especially needed?”
You might have been on a river, lake, or ocean, or in mountains, woods, a desert, or open fields. Or perhaps you were caught in severe weather. Describe the experience.