Deep in the Sequoia wilderness, silence overwhelms the senses, casting a deafening emptiness through the land.

The silence, so complete, causes the body to listen inward; the throbs of the thumping heart and the body’s ambient whine become a droning chorus.

Light footsteps amplify into stomps. The rustles of clothes growl like sandpaper grinding against raw lumber.

Especially in the evening when the winds depart, leaving behind still leaves and placid lakes, their lapping waves giving pause.

It is hard to underestimate the beauty of these moments, where a mountain or hill’s reflection assumes a new life, a new perfection.

Rather than examine my surroundings with normal eyes, I decided to change perspective and explore the world sideways, upside down, vertically, appreciating life’s malleability.

Nature became an ethereal entertainment, as if a lake’s glassy mirror was not a transient beauty but a reflection eternal.