Acadia National Park – Bar Harbor, Maine

Is there a word for the feeling you get when you’re in the presence of something that stood long before you, and will still be standing long after you?

Reverence, wonder, humility…

This is where my thoughts went as I hiked beneath the spiraling pines that were likely centuries old and had bark the color of the wood in my grandparents’ house and an aroma that was just as familiar and comforting.

This is where my thoughts went as I looked up at the big, open faced boulders and never ending rock gardens, laying my hands on the millions of years of mountain history as we scrambled over the stony tangles and edged closer to each summit.

Magnificence formed, and still forming, over an unfathomable span of time – and somehow we, mere humans, find ourselves in the middle of it all.