The Measure of Wonder

A scientist and artist began climbing Granite Chief Trail late in the afternoon.

They had known one another for years, although neither entirely understood the other, and it was their first hike together.

Dr. Elena Vale was a physicist by training and temperament. She trusted what could be observed, measured, tested, and repeated. Daniel, a writer and photographer, trusted what could be felt but never fully explained.

They carried different instruments.

Elena carried a field notebook, a small magnifying lens, an altimeter, and a weather meter clipped to her pack. Daniel carried a camera he often used along with his prized leather bound Journal filled with his favorite quotes, poems, ideas and observations.

The trail rose quickly from Olympic Valley, leaving behind the homes, lifts, and noise of the village. Soon there was only granite beneath their boots, the resinous smell of the forest, and the occasional rush of wind moving through the firs.

Elena stopped beside a fractured boulder.

“Freeze-thaw weathering,” she said, tracing a pale seam in the stone. “Water entered the crack, froze, expanded, and eventually split it apart.”

Daniel placed his hand against the rock.

“It feels like something that has survived being broken,” he said.

Elena smiled politely.

“It's not surviving. It's geology.”

A little farther up the trail, they passed a Juniper Tree growing from what appeared to be solid granite. Its trunk had been twisted by wind and winter into a long, silver curve. Half of it looked dead. The other half held tight clusters of green needles and small blue berries.

Daniel stopped.

“Look at that,” he said.

Elena looked.

“Juniperus occidentalis,” she said. “Possibly several centuries old. Its shape is the result of intense winds, snow loading, limited soil, and lack of water.”

Daniel walked slowly around the tree.

“To me, it looks like... resilience.”

“A tree can't be... 'resilience'.”

“How do you know?”

“Resilience requires consciousness.”

“Maybe so,” Daniel said. “Or maybe that's simply the rule we invented so resilience would belong only to us.”

Elena had little patience for this kind of thinking. Wonder, in her view, was what people reached for when knowledge failed them.

Children wondered why the sky was blue. Scientists studied the scattering of light.

Children believed mountains had moods. Scientists understood tectonic uplift, erosion, mineral composition, and atmospheric pressure.

Wonder was the beginning of inquiry, perhaps, but it was not the destination.

They continued upward.

Elena identified the trees and wildflowers they passed. She estimated the slope angle and noted the changing temperature as they gained elevation. When a Clark’s Nutcracker swept across the trail, she explained the bird’s relationship with high-elevation pines and its remarkable ability to remember the locations of thousands of buried seeds.

Daniel watched the bird disappear into the immense blue.

“It's carrying the forest into the future,” he said.

“It's caching food, silly!”

“Can’t both be true?” Daniel asked.

Elena didn't answer.

The farther they climbed, the larger the world became. Olympic Valley opened below them, green and gold in the late-season light. The ridges appeared one after another, each fading into a softer shade of blue. The air cooled. Shadows lengthened between the trees.

Daniel began to sense the disappearance of familiar boundaries.

"Look at this, Elena! What do you see?" Daniel stood next to a large dead tree root.

"I see a dead tree root," said Elena. "Why? What do you see?"

"I see the face of an old elephant. Can't you see it?"

"Or what about this!" Daniel exclaimed. "What do you see here?" As he stood next to another ancient root.

"I see more dead wood," said Elena.

Daniel saw sculptural drama. Both the elephant and the horse felt warm, noble, and almost alive.

The wind didn't seem to pass around him. It passed through him. The granite beneath his boots, the raven circling above the ridge, the faces in the deadwood, and the blood moving through his body no longer felt like separate events. Everything belonged to everything else. Nothing seemed higher or lower, important or insignificant. The smallest lichen shared the same world as the mountain peak. The fallen tree was no less complete than the living one. The cloud wasn't more beautiful than the stone. Each was simply itself, participating in the same great unfolding.

And time itself seemed to slow to a crawl... Minutes widened. Distance became uncertain.

Daniel felt he had been climbing for hours, but that he had never been anywhere else. He was flooded with a gratitude so sudden and complete that he had to stop walking.

Elena turned. “Are you all right?”

Daniel nodded, although tears had begun to gather in his eyes.

“I don’t know how to explain it,” he said, while leaning against a tree.

“Try,” she asked.

“For a moment, I couldn’t tell where I was.”

Elena glanced down the mountain. “Altitude can affect perception.”

Daniel laughed. “You always have an answer, don't you Elena?”

“That's what answers are for,” she said with a smile.

“No,” Daniel admitted. “Sometimes an answer closes the door too quickly.”

He got his balance back and they climbed in silence after that.

Near the upper ridge, the trail grew steeper and less distinct. Granite slabs caught the last direct light of day. The wind strengthened, carrying the clean scent of stone, pine, and the first hints of evening. Up here, the trees were more bent by the merciless elements.

By the time they reached their resting place, the sun had begun its descent toward the the rough silouette of the western horizon, casting long shadows to the east.

They sat side by side on separate boulders.

Elena checked the time, elevation, temperature, wind speed, and direction. Daniel said nothing. For once, he didn't try to turn the moment into a metaphor.

Then the sky began to change.

It deepened into amber, then an almost impossible pink. The entire Valley seemed to absorb the color. The rocks glowed. Shadows filled with violet. The air appeared illuminated. And the clouds? Even to Elena, they looked like King's Hawaiian Sweet Rolls on fire.

She knew what was happening.

Elena knew that as the sun approached the horizon, its light traveled through more of Earth’s atmosphere. The shorter blue wavelengths were scattered away, leaving the longer reds and oranges to reach their eyes. Dust, moisture, elevation, and cloud position shaped the intensity of the display.

She understood the physics.

But the knowledge didn't protect her from the beauty.

For several minutes, neither of them spoke.

The sunset continued beyond anything reasonable, as if the sky had forgotten how to stop.

Elena felt something within her give way. It wasn't a rejection of reason. It was the recognition that explanation and experience weren't opposing forces.

Knowing how light traveled didn't make the light less incredible.

Knowing how a Juniper Tree survived didn't diminish its resilience, even if resilience was only a word a human mind gave to endurance under extreme pressure.

“Daniel,” she said at last, “I think I have misunderstood wonder.”

He was perplexed.

“I thought wonder was what remained when we didn't know the answer. But I'm beginning to think wonder is what remains even after we know.”

Daniel smiled and said, “And maybe I've misunderstood science.”

“How so?” she asked.

“I thought measuring the world reduced it. But I'm beginning to think measurement is another form of attention... another form of appreciation.”

Below them, Olympic Valley was slipping into darkness. The first star appeared above the ridge.

Elena closed her notebook.

Daniel left his camera inside his pack.

They simply watched and enjoyed the moment together as the moon rose over a distant mountain.

Science could tell them what the star was made of, how far its light had traveled, and how long that light had wandered through darkness before reaching Granite Chief.

Art could tell them why two people might see that light and feel less alone.

Neither truth was complete without the other.

When the final color faded, they switched on their headlamps and began the long descent back to the Valley below.

The rocks were the same rocks. The trees were the same trees. Gravity held them to the same Earth, and the familiar laws of nature remained faithfully in place.

Yet something had changed.

The scientist still wanted to understand the world.

The artist still wanted to feel himself within it.

But now each carried a little of the other.

Elena paused beside an ancient Juniper Tree. In the narrow beam of her headlamp, she placed her hand against its weathered branch and looked closely at its berries.

Daniel waited for her to identify them.

She did not.

“What do you see?” he finally asked.

Elena looked up past the berries, through the branches, toward the darkness and the uncountable stars beyond them.

“Something marvelous,” she said.

Then Daniel asked Elena a deeper question, "Do you think one can measure wonder?"

And Elena's response was slow and methodical. "I suppose the truest measure of wonder isn't how strongly it moves us in the moment, but how differently we see the world afterward."

And together they continued down the mountain, returning to the same world they had left only hours before, grateful to discover that it was no longer quite the same.

***

All photographs by Michael Kennedy (unless otherwise noted) / BlueWolfGallery.com

I’m Michael Kennedy, a resident of Olympic Valley, CA (in photo above with Nicola and Boo). I’m a writer and photographer and I love exploring nature and getting lost along the way. We live in a world that demands our attention and I just want to say thank you for your attention. If you enjoyed this post, please share this with a friend. For more photos and stories visit BlueWolfGallery.com.