"Use your senses fully. Be where you are. Look around. Just look, don’t interpret. See the light, shapes, colors, textures. Be aware of the silent presence of each thing. Be aware of the space that allows everything to be. Listen to the sounds; don’t judge them. Listen to the silence underneath the sounds. Touch something — anything — and feel and acknowledge its Being." ~ Eckhart Tolle

While hiking Horton Creek Trail, during Autumn, in the Tonto National Forest of Arizona, I decided that I needed to just stop hiking, pick a spot along the creek, and then just let go and Be -- without any interpretation. I set the camera down, set myself down, and spent two hours in the same spot along the creek doing nothing but allowing my senses to shine. The sounds, light, shapes, colors, and textures took hold of me with gentle force; and suddenly I had awareness that my moments of just being could not fully awaken without the full acknowledgement that everything else around me was also just being. When I grasped that the great spirit in myself and in this environment were the same, I was fully at peace. Then, and only then, could I finally capture the essence of all of it in this single photograph.