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The Natural Aesthetic
9 years ago
General
♥♥♥♥♥♥
♥♥♥♥♥♥ 
We all get caught up in the synthetic world built by man, be it the daily routine of work or the trivial drama of social media. For the most part we are able to press through these things without being too affected. However, taking a break from the realities of modern life can be quite refreshing and allow us to recharge before diving back in. The aesthetic is that which can bring us into a state of mind that is free from the daily grind. The aesthetic is subjective and differs for each person. Understanding yourself and your personal tastes will help you find what is and is not your personal aesthetics.
I recently finished a summer semester where I took a freshman geology course, performing remarkably well. I have a two week break before fall classes start and I decided to do an extended camping trip to the Great Sand Dunes in Colorado. The original plan was for light camping with a three mile hike over loose sand, arriving on Wednesday and remaining until Sunday. When we arrived the only campsites available were a half mile or nine mile hike. We chose the half mile hike which made the experience more relaxing than challenging. Being so close to our car and treated water, we decided to hike back for water instead of using our filter system. It also made hikes into the dunes more bearable as we could stop at the car for a rest before returning to camp.
We experimented with light gear this trip. I used my poncho and poncho liner I got from the army as my sleeping bag which worked pretty well at keeping me warm. I rented a foam sleeping pad which made the ground a bit more bearable. Cian rented a lightweight sleeping bag and an air pad which he said worked very well. We used an army laundry bag to put our food and other smellables out of reach of bears. The mosquitoes were annoying, but thanks to our cotton ribstop shirts and deet we did not get bit more than a few times. We used Under Armour heat gear as a base layer with the ribstop shirt and 5/11 ribstop pants as an outer layer. Being in the direct sun was slightly uncomfortable, but the clothing combination kept us very well protected from burns and bugs. Taking breaks in the shade was like sitting in an air conditioned room. It was fantastic.
Now for the aesthetic. From our camp we could look out into the dunefield which changed appearance depending on the time of day. The light tan look of mid day gave way to sharp contrasts of light and dark sands in the late afternoon before changing again to a burnt orange at sunset. The true scale of the dunes is relatively hidden until a reference such as a human is seen walking the field, being nothing more than a dot on a mound of quartz and feldspar. On a particularly windy evening we could see individual dunes over five kilometers away, the blowing sands reflecting the sunlight highlighting the peaks and the shadows cast by the dunes marking the eastern slopes. It was that which gave me the idea that from a distance, hell can be very beautiful (being in sand dunes during heavy winds really sucks). That night we went into the dune field, conditions were still windy, but the sky was clear. We watched sand being transported by wind as it swept across the fields, depositing in a very particular way. The clear sky revealed shooting stars of spectacular magnitude. Massive thunderclouds built up along the mountains to the east, dumping their moisture as the mountains forced the air up beyond the point where water could stay in vapor form. Occasional bolts of lighting lit up the clouds as if some photographer with a powerful flash were snapping shots. We had a half moon lighting up the land which made it somewhat easy to navigate, though we were unable to resolve objects more than ten meters away. The more normal people moving through the dunes at night heavily relied on their flashlights to move around. Because of this they could only see that which was lit directly in front of them. The intensity of their lights washed out the surrounding landscape illuminated by the moon. They were completely oblivious to the fact that Cian and I were only a few meters away from them, watching the group move around like mindless zombies. They talked continuously, never once being silent to observe the sound of the world around them. By their own actions, they built a barrier between themselves and the greater world around them.
During the day we would got to the creek that flows along the east side of the dunes and would watch the stream deposit and erode sediments along the bed. We dug holes to see how the creek was affected, how sediment deposits were changed. We noticed that others had built sandcastles some time before we showed up and were in a state of decay, much like ancient ruins that were abandoned centuries ago. We called these structures "failed civilizations" with the concept being that they struggled hard to delay the inevitable. Once abandoned, these structures revert back to the loose sand they once were, much like how our buildings will decay into nothing given enough time. We hiked into the grasslands, which most people avoid due to the lack of shade and distance from the main attractions, where we saw the circular rings around shoots of grass that were created as wind blew the grass around. The fecal deposits of owls dotted this area, being composed of rodent hair and bones. We came across an area with large rocks exposed at the surface which had been sandblasted smooth due to blowing sand impacting the exposed surfaces over hundreds if not thousands of years. A few of these rocks are now in my personal collection.
The geology of this area is extremely interesting. The western side of the San Luis Valley (the valley where the Sand Dunes are located) is where you will find the San Juan Mountains, a range of volcanic origin dating back to around 66 million years. The dark, fine sand that can be found in the dunes come from these mountains some 50 plus miles away. The eastern side of the valley is where you will find the Sangre-de-Cristo Mountains, a young mountain range with precambrian basement rock forming the core of the mountains and metamorphic rock of volcanic origin surrounding it. This range is geologically young, not uplifting until 5 million years ago. This range is still uplifting today, pushing east as the valley to the west sinks. The mountains rise sharply from the valley due to the normal fault. Going west from the peaks, you'll see a point where the steepness of the mountains give way to a shallow gradient stretching across the road and into the valley. These are alluvial fans made from the sediments eroded from the mountains. The basement rock which is exposed in the Sangre-de-Cristo mountains is more than 13,000 feet below the surface in the valley, buried by sediments which have deposited over millions of years as it sunk from the rifting of the Rio Grande. The lighter, course grain sand seen in the dunes are from the Sangre-de-Cristo mountains, which are right next to the dune field. Distance traveled by these grains makes a huge difference in their size, the further they travel the finer they get. The eastern side of the San Luis Valley is a closed basin, meaning that the water that flows in does not flow out. This makes agriculture on this side difficult as the water will get progressively saline if too much gets pumped out. The western side of the valley is drained by the Rio Grande river which allows heavy agricultural use of the land. The valley itself is a true desert as it gets an average of 8 inches of rain per year.
Armed with a map, compass, and a good view, I got a good sense of just how tiny and insignificant we are in comparison to the planet. Having only my own body to move around, it was humbling to experience how difficult it is to move distances that automobiles and pavement have made trivial. As I watched the sun set, I felt the wind blowing across my face. The heat that dumped into the valley pushed the air east to dump into the cooler valley to the east. When the energy of the sun was removed, the air that was displaced came rushing back into the valley, pulling in cold mountain air that was crisp and fresh.
Taking note of the smaller world around me, I watched ants foraging for food, picking up the mosquitoes I killed to feed the colony. I wondered what ant waste might look like before considering the possibility that the older worker/soldier ants probably fill up on waste before going away from the colony to die. The individuals of this colony have their own desires, but their individual will is superseded by the colony itself. Energy brought into the colony is converted into new ants which in a way serves as a reservoir that prevents it from being washed downstream. Dumping energy into this system, such as giving them a chunk of food, perturbs this system which may lead to a sudden increase in ants followed by a collapse afterwards. The colony will suffer, but it will survive. I wonder, if more eggs are laid than there is food available, will the surplus eggs be used as a food source? Are there any ant nerds that can fill me in on this?
Deer live in this area and they leave their marks on the plant life. One bush had evolved to grow berries around leaves with thorns. The berries are packed with seeds and are easily removed when ripe. The thorns need pressure to be effective, more than what it takes to remove the berries but less than what is needed to remove the leaves. Without these thorns the deer would remove leaves along with the berries. Deer feces are akin to fertilizer packets. When filled with seeds of these berries, they allow the plant to better establish itself as a sprout. Aspens have signs of antler scrapes on them, some deep into the bark. The trees may suffer, but the root system remains intact and easily rebounds. The trees of this species is more like our hair, being shed once it is no longer useful to the root system. We used a felled aspen to hang our food bag.
The rocks near our camp were the meta-volcanic type with green shades mixed into them. I am not exactly sure what this green material is made of, but I would assume it has either magnesium or chlorine as component elements. The exposed rocks near the stream had calcite deposits, left behind as water leeched out of the rock filled with dissolved minerals and evaporated away. Rocks are the ultimate history books which can tell amazing stories if you understand how to read them. I could see evidence of the normal fault that continues to push up the Sangre-de-Cristo mountains in these exposed layers. The eroded rocks are surrounded by sand blown in from the dunes which combined with the mineral deposits will eventually form a breccia with a fine sand grain matrix. This is similar to what you may see at Red Rocks or Garden of the Gods. Looking closely at the sand with an eyepiece magnifier, I could see the same rocks as those around me only on a much smaller scale. The materials that make a rock the size of your fist can also be seen as a grain smaller than a pixel on this screen.
I could go on about the cycles of birds moving across the land, the insects that did their mating dances when the birds were gone, the feeling of pressure systems moving through the atmosphere, etc. The natural world is a fantastic place if you take the time to set aside your ego to observe it.
Returning home, I am reminded of the fantastic comforts we have. An entire room can be illuminated at the flip of a switch, potable water is just a tap away. Heated water for a cleansing shower is an expectation rather than a luxury. I can move around my apartment naked without being eaten alive by parasites. My bed is soft and comfortable. My biological wastes are removed by the flush of a toilet. Living in rough conditions for a few days allows me to appreciate the luxuries in life that nearly everyone in the first world takes for granted.
I recently finished a summer semester where I took a freshman geology course, performing remarkably well. I have a two week break before fall classes start and I decided to do an extended camping trip to the Great Sand Dunes in Colorado. The original plan was for light camping with a three mile hike over loose sand, arriving on Wednesday and remaining until Sunday. When we arrived the only campsites available were a half mile or nine mile hike. We chose the half mile hike which made the experience more relaxing than challenging. Being so close to our car and treated water, we decided to hike back for water instead of using our filter system. It also made hikes into the dunes more bearable as we could stop at the car for a rest before returning to camp.
We experimented with light gear this trip. I used my poncho and poncho liner I got from the army as my sleeping bag which worked pretty well at keeping me warm. I rented a foam sleeping pad which made the ground a bit more bearable. Cian rented a lightweight sleeping bag and an air pad which he said worked very well. We used an army laundry bag to put our food and other smellables out of reach of bears. The mosquitoes were annoying, but thanks to our cotton ribstop shirts and deet we did not get bit more than a few times. We used Under Armour heat gear as a base layer with the ribstop shirt and 5/11 ribstop pants as an outer layer. Being in the direct sun was slightly uncomfortable, but the clothing combination kept us very well protected from burns and bugs. Taking breaks in the shade was like sitting in an air conditioned room. It was fantastic.
Now for the aesthetic. From our camp we could look out into the dunefield which changed appearance depending on the time of day. The light tan look of mid day gave way to sharp contrasts of light and dark sands in the late afternoon before changing again to a burnt orange at sunset. The true scale of the dunes is relatively hidden until a reference such as a human is seen walking the field, being nothing more than a dot on a mound of quartz and feldspar. On a particularly windy evening we could see individual dunes over five kilometers away, the blowing sands reflecting the sunlight highlighting the peaks and the shadows cast by the dunes marking the eastern slopes. It was that which gave me the idea that from a distance, hell can be very beautiful (being in sand dunes during heavy winds really sucks). That night we went into the dune field, conditions were still windy, but the sky was clear. We watched sand being transported by wind as it swept across the fields, depositing in a very particular way. The clear sky revealed shooting stars of spectacular magnitude. Massive thunderclouds built up along the mountains to the east, dumping their moisture as the mountains forced the air up beyond the point where water could stay in vapor form. Occasional bolts of lighting lit up the clouds as if some photographer with a powerful flash were snapping shots. We had a half moon lighting up the land which made it somewhat easy to navigate, though we were unable to resolve objects more than ten meters away. The more normal people moving through the dunes at night heavily relied on their flashlights to move around. Because of this they could only see that which was lit directly in front of them. The intensity of their lights washed out the surrounding landscape illuminated by the moon. They were completely oblivious to the fact that Cian and I were only a few meters away from them, watching the group move around like mindless zombies. They talked continuously, never once being silent to observe the sound of the world around them. By their own actions, they built a barrier between themselves and the greater world around them.
During the day we would got to the creek that flows along the east side of the dunes and would watch the stream deposit and erode sediments along the bed. We dug holes to see how the creek was affected, how sediment deposits were changed. We noticed that others had built sandcastles some time before we showed up and were in a state of decay, much like ancient ruins that were abandoned centuries ago. We called these structures "failed civilizations" with the concept being that they struggled hard to delay the inevitable. Once abandoned, these structures revert back to the loose sand they once were, much like how our buildings will decay into nothing given enough time. We hiked into the grasslands, which most people avoid due to the lack of shade and distance from the main attractions, where we saw the circular rings around shoots of grass that were created as wind blew the grass around. The fecal deposits of owls dotted this area, being composed of rodent hair and bones. We came across an area with large rocks exposed at the surface which had been sandblasted smooth due to blowing sand impacting the exposed surfaces over hundreds if not thousands of years. A few of these rocks are now in my personal collection.
The geology of this area is extremely interesting. The western side of the San Luis Valley (the valley where the Sand Dunes are located) is where you will find the San Juan Mountains, a range of volcanic origin dating back to around 66 million years. The dark, fine sand that can be found in the dunes come from these mountains some 50 plus miles away. The eastern side of the valley is where you will find the Sangre-de-Cristo Mountains, a young mountain range with precambrian basement rock forming the core of the mountains and metamorphic rock of volcanic origin surrounding it. This range is geologically young, not uplifting until 5 million years ago. This range is still uplifting today, pushing east as the valley to the west sinks. The mountains rise sharply from the valley due to the normal fault. Going west from the peaks, you'll see a point where the steepness of the mountains give way to a shallow gradient stretching across the road and into the valley. These are alluvial fans made from the sediments eroded from the mountains. The basement rock which is exposed in the Sangre-de-Cristo mountains is more than 13,000 feet below the surface in the valley, buried by sediments which have deposited over millions of years as it sunk from the rifting of the Rio Grande. The lighter, course grain sand seen in the dunes are from the Sangre-de-Cristo mountains, which are right next to the dune field. Distance traveled by these grains makes a huge difference in their size, the further they travel the finer they get. The eastern side of the San Luis Valley is a closed basin, meaning that the water that flows in does not flow out. This makes agriculture on this side difficult as the water will get progressively saline if too much gets pumped out. The western side of the valley is drained by the Rio Grande river which allows heavy agricultural use of the land. The valley itself is a true desert as it gets an average of 8 inches of rain per year.
Armed with a map, compass, and a good view, I got a good sense of just how tiny and insignificant we are in comparison to the planet. Having only my own body to move around, it was humbling to experience how difficult it is to move distances that automobiles and pavement have made trivial. As I watched the sun set, I felt the wind blowing across my face. The heat that dumped into the valley pushed the air east to dump into the cooler valley to the east. When the energy of the sun was removed, the air that was displaced came rushing back into the valley, pulling in cold mountain air that was crisp and fresh.
Taking note of the smaller world around me, I watched ants foraging for food, picking up the mosquitoes I killed to feed the colony. I wondered what ant waste might look like before considering the possibility that the older worker/soldier ants probably fill up on waste before going away from the colony to die. The individuals of this colony have their own desires, but their individual will is superseded by the colony itself. Energy brought into the colony is converted into new ants which in a way serves as a reservoir that prevents it from being washed downstream. Dumping energy into this system, such as giving them a chunk of food, perturbs this system which may lead to a sudden increase in ants followed by a collapse afterwards. The colony will suffer, but it will survive. I wonder, if more eggs are laid than there is food available, will the surplus eggs be used as a food source? Are there any ant nerds that can fill me in on this?
Deer live in this area and they leave their marks on the plant life. One bush had evolved to grow berries around leaves with thorns. The berries are packed with seeds and are easily removed when ripe. The thorns need pressure to be effective, more than what it takes to remove the berries but less than what is needed to remove the leaves. Without these thorns the deer would remove leaves along with the berries. Deer feces are akin to fertilizer packets. When filled with seeds of these berries, they allow the plant to better establish itself as a sprout. Aspens have signs of antler scrapes on them, some deep into the bark. The trees may suffer, but the root system remains intact and easily rebounds. The trees of this species is more like our hair, being shed once it is no longer useful to the root system. We used a felled aspen to hang our food bag.
The rocks near our camp were the meta-volcanic type with green shades mixed into them. I am not exactly sure what this green material is made of, but I would assume it has either magnesium or chlorine as component elements. The exposed rocks near the stream had calcite deposits, left behind as water leeched out of the rock filled with dissolved minerals and evaporated away. Rocks are the ultimate history books which can tell amazing stories if you understand how to read them. I could see evidence of the normal fault that continues to push up the Sangre-de-Cristo mountains in these exposed layers. The eroded rocks are surrounded by sand blown in from the dunes which combined with the mineral deposits will eventually form a breccia with a fine sand grain matrix. This is similar to what you may see at Red Rocks or Garden of the Gods. Looking closely at the sand with an eyepiece magnifier, I could see the same rocks as those around me only on a much smaller scale. The materials that make a rock the size of your fist can also be seen as a grain smaller than a pixel on this screen.
I could go on about the cycles of birds moving across the land, the insects that did their mating dances when the birds were gone, the feeling of pressure systems moving through the atmosphere, etc. The natural world is a fantastic place if you take the time to set aside your ego to observe it.
Returning home, I am reminded of the fantastic comforts we have. An entire room can be illuminated at the flip of a switch, potable water is just a tap away. Heated water for a cleansing shower is an expectation rather than a luxury. I can move around my apartment naked without being eaten alive by parasites. My bed is soft and comfortable. My biological wastes are removed by the flush of a toilet. Living in rough conditions for a few days allows me to appreciate the luxuries in life that nearly everyone in the first world takes for granted.
