What we’re about
“Nature has spread for us a rich and delightful banquet," espouses Thomas Cole of the Hudson River School of art, "Shall we turn from it? We are still in Eden; the wall that shuts us out of the garden is our own ignorance and folly.”
This group is simply a pathway to the outdoors. In a variety of activities, in a range of skill levels, we enjoy the divinity of nature without proselytizing, for as Emerson writes: "We see God face to face every hour, and know the savor of Nature."
Nature writer, John Burroughs -- native of my hometown, Esopus -- in his essay of 1922, The Last Harvest, writes: “God is as near us as ever He was – why should we take religion at secondhand?” Burroughs is not saying don't go to church or to eschew spiritual literature. He is saying: a spiritual life without time in Creation is incomplete.
Please join these outings to comfortably step into the wonders of nature near at hand. For as John Muir counsels, "Spread a fern-frond over a man's head, and worldly cares are cast out, and freedom and beauty and peace come in."
