Etnatao

Eco-friendly excursions on Mt. Etna

guided by a Geologist and Naturalistic Guide

Visit my website www.etnatao.com

and Etnatao Channel on YouTube

Mount Etna is the highest active volcano in continental Europe, one of the world’s most active volcanoes and a magic and primordial place.    >>

It rises to a height of over 3300 m. (11.000 feet) above the sea level, its north-south diameter is of 50 km (30 miles), it has four big central craters at its top and more than 200 small craters scattered all around the volcanic area.    >>

 

 

 

In this part of Sicily the volcanism started about half million years ago and it evolved from a mostly submarine activity to the growth of many different sub-aerial volcanoes superimposed one on  another.    >>

 

The result of this long and complicated evolution is the majestic volcano that we see today, which continues to grow, to evolve and to modify restlessly the landscape.    >>

 

Visiting Mt. Etna we can often see side by side two different faces of nature: the moony landscape of recent lava flows and, in a surrealistic contrast, extended green areas where the vegetation, after several centuries of struggle, has re-conquered and colonized old lava fields.  >>

The peculiarities of this unique environment stretch from volcanology to  tectonics, from geology to botany, from geophysics to ornithology, interlacing with countless myths and thousands of years of recorded human history.    >>

I am a geologist and a naturalistic guide and the excursions I propose tend to emphasize all the facets of Mt. Etna in order to discover “the essence” and the energy of this charming volcano. >>

In my vision walking is an integral part of the experience of approaching nature and Mt. Etna is a paradise for trekking because of the presence of many trails, from pleasant easy walks to extended hikes.    >>

 

 

One of the most interesting areas, the one where I often lead my groups, is around the altitude where the wood passes to the “Astragaletum” (high altitude vegetation area) and then to the volcanic desert.    >>

 

During an average excursion you will be able to see craters and lava fields of different ages, volcanic bombs, fractures, lava caves, volcano-tectonic valleys (calderas), endemic plants and trees (species that grow exclusively in this area), and some of the animals, birds and insects that have adapted to survive in this rough habitat.    >>

This eco-friendly project is an alternative to the many other touristy excursions with a jeep, it is a true naturalistic excursion with zero impact on the environment, suited for people who feel that a well-balanced approach to nature can be a vehicle of personal growth and a way of harmony.

 

 

Guided excursions in :

Italian

English

Spanish

Portuguese

Contacts :

etnatao@gmail.com

Telephone +39 338 2197869

Visit my website www.etnatao.com

and Etnatao Channel on YouTube

Feedbacks :

Condé Nast Traveler Magazine

The world’s premier travel magazine, with travel tips, vacation ideas and destination informations

“Not Your Grandfather’s Sicily” January 2009
by Ondine Cohane

“After a few miles on the road to Mount Etna, Sicily’s villages disappear, leaving just the sharp contrast of the forested areas (known as dagala) and the lava fields of the volcano,ossified and nearly barren. Flashes of the Ionian Sea are visible below.

Carmelo Giuffrida, my guide, explains how the split nature of this landscape is echoed in the character of the people who live close by—in their irreverence and fatalism. One house might be destroyed in an eruption; another, only feet away, spared. We get out of the van and start climbing toward the Valle del Bove. Apart from the crunch of our boots on the volcanic sand, an occasional birdcall, and a low grumbling from the volcano that becomes more apparent as we ascend, there are no sounds. The hard climb means that Carmelo and I barely speak, save for his pointing out trees and plants. Many of these have medicinal and mythic associations: One is thought to halt mortality, another is an antiseptic that Achilles supposedly used, and a third would hydrate lonely climbers when there was no water around. As we get higher, the trees seem more like bonsai than pine. A pair of falcons hover overhead. And then we arrive at the Valle del Bove, a vast crater that resembles an unending primordial valley.

As Carmelo moves off to let me experience it by myself, the rumbling grows more intense. I sit there for what feels like an hour, watching the shadows change.

Carmelo, a fifty-year-old naturalist from Catania, Sicily’s second-largest city, on the eastern coast, left the island for a couple of decades to live in New York, and traveled extensively in Latin America and India.Then he moved back and started to work as a guide, introducing visitors to the unique flora and wildlife and to the true character of Etna—the paradox of violence and nurturing—that is the reality of the volcano. As we walk back down from our conquest, we discuss Bruce Chatwin’s book In Patagonia—and then how the personality of the volcano (the creator, the destroyer, and the equalizer) can be compared to Indian deities.

I am struck by how Carmelo’s adventures farther afield have made him more attuned to nuance in his explanations of his home turf.

Carmelo is part of a new wave of Sicilians who are changing the way the island is experienced by travelers. Sicily, known for sending away its sons and daughters, is, like my native Ireland, reversing the migratory pattern as a result of new prosperity.

Talent is coming home, and making its mark!”

Il mensile per l’ecologia della mente e la decrescita felice

June 2010

“Etna walk : primordial charm”

by  Maria Ferdinanda Piva

“Etna is the highest volcano in Europe, one of the most active in the world and a magic and primordial place. To visit these places of rare beauty, the best way is to go walking.”

Visiting Etna is like stepping into a concentrated space and time. In just a few kilometers you can pass from the warmth of the Sicilian beaches (you can swim from  spring  to late autumn) to the snow, which is sometimes still present in May to the top at  over 3300 meters above the sea level.
As for the passing of time, the landscape shaped by the highest and most active volcano in Europe varies so quickly that the changes can already be seen in few months or few years, not in millions of years like normally happens elsewhere.
Over 700-800 meters there are few traces of human activity, because it is not worthwhile to plow fields, plant vineyards and build houses on which any day may be destroyed  by the fury of lava. The real estate that usually leave an inheritance to their children and grandchildren, here at any moment can be sucked into the vortex of transformation. It is as if the volcano wanted to underline the impermanence and irresistible tendency to change of everything that surround us: an element that western thought does not takes into account very often.

The Tao of Etna

“It’s the Tao of Etna.” sums up Carmelo Giuffrida.
He called “Etnatao” his project, which consists in leading naturalistic excursions on Mt. Etna.
Carmelo is a naturalistic guide and has a degree in geology, fact quite rare, the latter among the guides working around the volcano and more generally in Sicily.
“The majority of my hosts are foreigners. – he says. Especially from Germany, Uk and France. They are between 30 and 50 years, who have usually learned from their parents to appreciate the pleasures of hiking. In Italy walking is not yet this popular, many people consider it not very interesting. Instead, I am convinced that  it is an intriguing experience and the best way to approach nature. I’m trying with difficulty to build an awareness of this type here in the south, where the distance from environmental issues is  higher than the italian average”.
Not to mention that Etna is indeed a regional park, not a national park as it should be and the management of this vast territory is largely bureaucratic, with a lack of efficient services and controls.
Despite this, Etna has much to offer, and is a great place to learn to appreciate all that “slow”  tourism is able to offer.
Nature does not merely provide fireworks at the top of the volcano (about mutability of the landscape: three of the four summit craters were born in 1900, the latest in 1971), but unfolds in a thousand aspects at various altitudes. Many volcanoes have only a rocky desert landscape, Mt. Etna  has also large areas covered with vegetation.

An extraordinary flora

Being a huge volcano overlooking the sea, Mt. Etna shows a broad range of habitats that change according to the altitude and a very extended blooming season that may start at the sea level around January and may last up to late October at 1800 or 2000 meters.
There are many endemic plants, such as the Etna Broom (Genista aetnensis) or the two varieties of daisy looking flowers (the only two endemic species able to grow up to 3050 meters of altitude, in the heart of the volcanic desert) the Senecio aetnensis and Anthemis aetnensis.
Who would expect to find here, at a stone’s throw from Africa, Birch trees so typical of northern and central Europe? They moved southwards during last ice age  and eventually arrived here colonizing the slope of Etna. Isolation, combined with the extreme characteristics of the environment, has led them to evolve into a separate species, the Betula aetnensis, able also to withstand the long and dry summers.
Here you can also find Beech trees (Fagus Sylvatica), typical also of cooler climates. Here  the Beech trees reach the highest altitude in Europe (over 2200 meters above the sea level) and also this is the southermost area in all this continent where this kind of tree can grow. Beyond the limit of trees and below the beginning of the volcanic desert, Etna offers another exclusive habitat : the Astragaletum. Named after the Astragalus Siculus,  another endemic plant. It is an area of low and bushy and nearly all endemic plant, that climbs the sides of the mountain (up to 2500 meters) until it reaches the volcanic desert of the highest altitudes of the volcano. The perimeter of the volcanic cone measure at the base over hundred km, but winds in areas of urbanized enough. The walk is more interesting at middle altitudes: thirty km in three to four days, with overnight stays in bivouacs.
The landscape is anything but monotonous even when it is crossed horizontally instead of vertically.You can often see side by side two different faces of nature: the moony landscape of recent lava flows and, in a surrealistic contrast, extended green areas where the vegetation, after several centuries of struggle, has re-conquered and colonized old lava fields.

The footprint of an extreme volcano

There are incredible differences between different sides of Mt. Etna.
To the East  there is a big volcano-tectonic valley,Valle del Bove, a place that condenses most of the volcanological history of Mt. Etna.
To the South many different lava flows flew down in the past centuries and the result is a fascinating landscape where each flow is at a different stage of colonization by pioneer vegetation.
To the North you got extended areas covered by Pine trees  (Pinus Nigra),  Beech trees (Betula aethnensis) and and higher up the Grotta del Gelo, a volcanic cave where the ice is present all year round.
To the West Etna has a totally different shape and offers a fantastic landscape that opens up to the inner part of Sicily.At just an hour travel by car from Catania and is already possible to find interesting trails that go through pristine and remote landscapes, that give you  the impression of  a magic place lost in time. “The ecofriendly excursions I propose – Carmelo says – tend to emphasize all the facets of Mt. Etna in order to discover the essence and the energy of this charming volcano”.
He also organizes excursions in the  Egadi and  Aeolian Islands, and in other parks of Sicily

http://www.aamterranuova.it/article4634.htm

Guía de Sicilia

Rumbo a Sicilia

de Miguel Reyero

Sin duda la mejor guía de Sicilia es la escrita por el viajero y gran conocedor de la isla Miguel Reyero. Editada por Laertes, Rumbo a Sicilia es un metódico recorrido por todos o al menos muchos de los rincones más significativos. Auna con gran calidad y cercanía para el lector, las magnificiencias de la Sicilia más conocida, con los parajes más recónditos y apartados.

“Una opción personalizada.
Si busca algo más que la habitual subida al Etna, pueden contactar con Carmelo Giuffrida, un  geologo y un excelente guía naturalista de Catania. Tras vivir en medio mundo (por supuesto habla castellano), os trasmitirá sus grandes conocimientos sobre la geología, la flora y la fauna del volcán y su comarca. Desde limitados paseos por lugares tan fascinantes como el Valle del Bove a rutas de senderismo más prolongadas y diversas opciones de ascensos al Etna, tanto individuales como para pequeños grupos, y con distintos presupuestos. En cualquier caso conoceréis bastante más la montaña, su evolución, y como ha ido conformando la región y incluso a sus habitantes.”

Without doubt the best guide to Sicily is written by the traveler and “connoisseur” of the island Reyero Miguel. Edited by Laertes, “Rumbo a Sicilia” is a methodical journey through all or, at least, many of the most significant corners of Sicily. It unites with high quality and proximity to the reader, the magnificence of the most popular Sicily, with the most hidden and remote places.

“A customized option.
For something more than the usual excursion to Etna, please contact Carmelo Giuffrida, a geologist and an excellent naturalistic guide of Catania. After living in half the world (of course speaks Spanish), he will share with you his great knowledge about the geology, flora and fauna of the volcano and its vicinity. From easy walks in fascinating places like the Valle del Bove, to longer hikes for both individual and small groups  with different budgets. In any case you will know much more about the mountain, its evolution that had a great influence on the land and even to its inhabitants.”

Hunter Adventure Sicily Guide

Excursions on Mt. Etna Independent operators :

Carmelo Giuffrida (last name mistaken) speaks several languages, including English, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian. He is an appassionate supporter of Etna’s environmental  and ecological tourism.

Qué decir de Carmelo Giuffrida? El es sin duda una de las guías naturalistas más preparadas sobre el volcán que podréis encontrar. Además compartir un día de excursión con él es una ‘gozada’ no solo por su preparación sobre temas de ciencias naturales y vulcanológicas, sino por su sonrisa, su simpatía e inteligente ironía, en un solo concepto diría por su agradable ‘compañía’.

What about Carmelo Giuffrida? He is without doubt one of the most prepared naturalist guides on the volcano that you can find. Sharing a day trip with him is very nice not only for its preparation on natural sciences but also for his smile, his charm, his clever irony and for his friendly company.

Boris Bonanno

Spain

http://www.shinesicily.com

Hi Carmelo,

I just wanted to thank you very much for a super day with my group on Mt.Etna.
We all thoroughly enjoyed your guidance and explanations and I thought that you are a sensitive, intelligent, thoughtful, wise and very friendly fellow!
I particularly liked your philosophical and spiritual approach to Mother Earth and her workings – something that I certainly agree with!
Greetings!

Martin Hunt
Adventureline
Redruth,
Cornwall, England

Meer dan een gids voor de Etna is Carmelo in eerste instantie een goede vriend.Toen wij hem voor het eerst hebben ontmoet klikte het meteen. Zijn houding past precies bij onze filosofie van reizen organiseren om Sicilië op een authentieke manier en buiten de massa touristiche paden te ontdekken. Hij heeft voor ons ook meerdere groepen begeleid en niet alleen om tijdens een dag excursie de Mt Etna te leren kennen, maar ook voor een paar dagen Sicilië rond te trekken. Het is altijd een groot success geweest! Wij zijn helemaal tevreden met zijn werk en als onze gasten met hem op pad zijn, weten wij zeker dat zij in hele goede handen zijn.Deze feedback van een gast van ons die met Carmelo de Etna heeft bezocht spreekt voor zich:

“Een hoogtepunt was de ontmoeting met de gids Carmelo, niet alleen vanwege de indrukwekkende ervaringen op de Etna, maar vooral ook door het persoonlijke contact met hem. Hij deelde zijn grote kennis over geologie en planten met ons, maar ook zijn bijzondere kijk op de natuur en het leven in het algemeen. Dat is door ons allen heel inspirerend gevonden. We hopen hem beslist nog eens te ontmoeten!”

Neem ook een kijkje op onze video met hem van een bijzondere dag op de Etna:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HceMSE9S20Y

kunnen dus iedereen een excursie met Carmelo aanbeleven, geniet er van!

More than a guide for Etna Carmelo is primarily a good friend. When we first met something clicked immediately. His attitude fits perfectly with our philosophy of organizing trips to Sicily in an authentic way and outside the mass tourism. He has led several groups for us and not just during one day excursion to Mt. Etna, but also for a few days touring Sicily.It has always been a great success! We are completely satisfied with his work and when our guests go with him we do know that they are in very good hands. This feedback from one of our guest who visited Mount Etna with Carmelo speaks for itself:

“One highlight of our trip was meeting the guide Carmelo, not only for his impressive experience about Mt. Etna, but also for his personal contact with us. He shared his great knowledge about geology and botany with us, but also his particular view of nature and life in general. That we all found very inspiring. We hope to meet him again! “

Take a look at our video of him with a special day on Mount Etna:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HceMSE9S20Y

Mario Gorgone

Tururi Tours

Holland

http://www.tururi.org

Pour les excursions sur l’Etna nous collaborons avec Carmelo depuis plus de deux ans. C’est notre Guide préféré! Son expérience et son don pour transmettre des informations techniques simples a permis à nos voyageurs d’apprécier pleinement la visite. Carmelo propose des excursions personnalisées selon le rythme et le niveau du groupe et s’adapte scrupuleusement aux conditions météorologiques. En plus de ses vastes connaissances des différentes réalités  dans la région de l’Etna, tant du point de vue géologique, que de la flore et la faune, Carmelo sait immédiatement mettre à l’aise tout le monde grâce à son calme et à sa générosité. Des retours positifs dès les premiers voyages, nous ont donné envie de publier les témoignages sur le site afin de faire partager leur expérience à ceux qui cherchent une excursion sur mesure, au contact de la nature, loin du tourisme de masse.

We have been working with Carmelo for two years for the naturalistic excursions on  Mt. Etna.  He is our favourite guide! His long experience and his gift of easily passing you even the most technical information allowed our guests to fully appreciate the excursions. From time to time he proposes new and tailor made excursions based on the rhythm and the level of the group, scrupulously following the changing weather conditions. He has a deep knowledge of  all the different realities of the Etna area, its wildlife, its flora and its geology. He makes you feel at your ease thanks to his empathy and sweet humour. Positive feedbacks have arrived since his first excursion and we wanted to publish them on this site to share the tourists experiences with those who are looking for a tailor made excursion, in contact with nature, far from mass tourism proposals.

Gaetano Mangano

VoyageSicile

GreenSicily

France

http://www.voyagesicile.com

http://www.greensicily.com

Dear Carmelo
It was probably obvious how pleasurable we found your excursion. It was the highlight of our trip to Sicily.
You made your extensive knowledge of Etna available to us in a very understandable and interesting manner.
We will always treasure this experience.
On the bus trip to the airport we had a wonderfully clear view of Etna and could see there was activity around Valle Del Bove . We thought perhaps you were up there soaking in the essence of the mountain’s power.
Your gentle and friendly manner made us feel like friends.  We hope to return and do this once again..
Best wishes,

Kerry and Kathy Frederick
Birmingham, NJ

USA

The guide that everyone would like to have

A thanks on behalf of the entire group for the wonderful week of trekking on Etna.
In particular thanks to the guide, Carmelo Giuffrida, for the dedication and professionalism demonstrated that ended with a relationship of “friendship”. Carmelo is the guide that everyone would like to have.
We hope to participate soon to other excursions.
Thanks again and a warm embrace

Innocente Marcolini

Dear Carmelo,

I just wanted to thank you for guiding me up Mount Etna.
I really enjoyed myself and feel you are a terrific guide.
I will definitely send my clients to you.

Kindest regards,

Andrea King
Travel Specialist
Everett, Washington
USA

Hi Carmelo,

We were very happy with the tour you gave us of Etna.It was one the highlights of our visit to beautiful Sicily.Thanks again for sharing all of your knowledge with us.If I know of anyone who plans to visit Etna I will definitely recommend you as their guide.

Salute!

Pat & Joan Tadie
Toronto
Canada

Dearest Carmelo,

we are the family of Fermo, Mauro, Alessandra, Andrea, Veronica and Luca, that came to your beautiful island last june..We would like to thank you for the beautiful day spent together during which we fell literally in love with Etna and Sicily. The fascination and the wisdom of all the stories you told never leaves us and whenevert we hear on TV  news about Sicily is reason to attentive listening. We believe that all this has been possible thanks to your sicilian spirit, so warm, spontaneous and noble.
Lots of greetings from all of us.

Fam. D’Ambrogio

Dear Carmelo,

After our first (very rainy) day back in Holland one of the first things we want to do, is to thank you again for the most interesting experience of our trip to Sicily, the one you have given us on Mt Etna.

We are still talking a lot about it and from time to time we remember each other to your wise words about undergoing the ‘now and here’. It is not easy to practise this advice in our daily-life experience in this always rushing country, but we were trying this before our trip and now that we have met you we will certainly go on practising!

We were all very impressed by the overwhelming nature of Etna and thanks to your extended knowledge and your friendly way of sharing it, we think we have experienced a little bit  of the effect nature can have on our personal lives.Summarising we all enjoyed our trip very much and we will certainly return one day!

Best wishes to you!

Joos Lenssen

Dearest Carmelo,
on behalf of all guys and the teachers of the European School of Varese, on a trip to Sicily in October 2009: THANK YOU!
You’ve shown so many interesting sides of  Etna.
Hardly could we live these feelings without your help. We will never forget that. We all think you are the best guide to love Etna.

Best regards

Elena De La Morena García

Hello Carmelo,
we want to thank you for the unforgettable tour on Mt. Etna.

Greetings

Merle, Joerg and Marystella Adler
Frankfurt
Germany

Links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ez5rbMEeBCU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CdcKLNcKVc

http://www.youtube.com/user/etnatao#p/a/u/1/8EgkoILnCM4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_exK_gWn4CM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTCP5sxkiH4&feature=related

- Quotes -

I believe that there is a subtle magnetism in Nature, which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright.
Henry David Thoreau

Nature often holds up a mirror so we can see more clearly the ongoing processes of growth, renewal, and transformation in our lives.
Mary Ann Brussat

Soon the child’s clear eye is clouded over by ideas and opinions, preconceptions, and abstractions. Simple free being becomes encrusted with the burdensome armor of the ego. Not until years later does an instinct come that a vital sense of mystery has been withdrawn. Then sun glints through the pines and the heart is pierced in a moment of beauty and strange pain, like a memory of paradise. After that day, we become seekers.
Peter Matthiessen

In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.
John Muir

When there is no place  that you have decided to call your own, then no matter where you go, you are always heading home.
Muso Soseki

The Wilderness and the idea of wilderness is one of the permanent homes of the human spirit.
Joseph Wood Krutch

As you walk, you simply walk. Don’t go ahead, don’t jump here and there. Mind always go ahead or lag behind. Remain with the moment.
Osho

You need special shoes for hiking – and a bit of a special soul as well.
Emme Woodhull Bäche

And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
T.S. Eliot

When you are going to hike – pack a light heart.
Dan May

It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.
Edmund Hillary

It is in man’s heart that the life of nature’s spectacle exists; to see it, one must feel it.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Do not go where the path may lead.  Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.    Anais Nin

Think what a great world revolution will take place when there are millions of guys all over the world with rucksacks on their backs tramping around the back country.
Jack Kerouac

This is a concept that western culture has forgotten : everything is one! The idea of  dichotomy is deeply wrong and nothing is better than a great symbol of China, the Tao, the wheel of yin and yang that represents life. The universe is the armony of opposites, because there is no water without fire, there is no female with no male, there is no night without day, there is no sun without the moon … there is no good without evil! This symbol is perfect since the white and black are embracing each other; inside the white there is a black point and inside the black there is a white point.
Tiziano Terzani

Yin and Yang are not in competition or conflict to each other, but are complements of each other. Balance is not a state but a process. The Tao is a process, a dynamic condition of balance.
Ray Grigg

When one walks, one is brought into touch first of all with the essential relations between one’s physical powers and the character of the country; one is compelled to see it as its natives do.  Then every man one meets is an individual.
Aleister Crowley

Wilderness is the raw material out of which man has hammered the artifact called civilization.
Aldo Leopold

The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition.
Carl Sagan

Wherever you are is the entry point.
Kabir

Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connected.
Chief Seattle

For me and for thousands with similar inclinations, the most important passion of life is the overpowering desire to escape periodically from the clutches of a mechanistic civilization. To us the enjoyment of solitude, complete independence, and the beauty of undefiled panoramas is absolutely essential to happiness.
Bob Marshall

Gradually, physicists began to realise that nature, at the atomic level, does not appear as a mechanical universe composed of fundamental building blocks, but rather as a network of relations, and that, ultimately, there are no parts at all in this interconnected web. Whatever we call a part is merely a pattern that has some stability and therefore captures our attention.
Fritjof Capra

The longest journey begins with a single step.
Lao Tzu

All paths are the same: they lead nowhere. However, a path without a heart is never enjoyable. On the other hand, a path with heart is easy—it does not make a warrior work at liking it; it makes for a joyful journey; as long as a man follows it, he is one with it.
Carlos Castaneda

The season of failure is the best time for sowing the seeds of success.
Paramahansa Yogananda

To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.
Bertrand Russell

I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.
John Muir

If you imagine yourself as separate from the world, the world will appear as separate from you and you will experience desire and fear. I do not see the world as separate from me and so there is nothing for me to desire, or fear.
Nisargadatta Maharaj

Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls.
Joseph Campbell

A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.
Walt Whitman

Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. . . Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.
Carl Gustav Jung

A human being is part of the whole, called by us “Universe,” a part limited in time and space.  He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest – a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.  This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us.  Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
Albert Einstein

The Tao is both singular and universal. It is open to all with the resolve and inclination to walk it. Those who do, however, take a variety of disciplines in approaching it, for the Tao extrapolates from the specific to the general. Dave Lowry

The fundamental delusion of humanity is to suppose that I am here and you ar out there.
Yasutani Roshi

The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure.
Joseph Campbell

We are all born originals – why is it so many of us die copies?
Edward Young

Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth that around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning, and under every deep a lower deep opens.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Look at the trees, look at the birds, look at the clouds, look at the stars… and if you have eyes you will be able to see that the whole existence is joyful.  Everything is simply happy.  Trees are happy for no reason; they are not going to become prime ministers or presidents and they are not going to become rich and they will never have any bank balance.  Look at the flowers – for no reason.  It is simply unbelievable how happy flowers are.
Osho

If you are seeking creative ideas, go out walking.  Angels whisper to a man when he goes for a walk.
Raymond Inmon

Utopia lies at the horizon. When I draw nearer by two steps,it retreats two steps. If I proceed ten steps forward, it swiftly slips ten steps ahead.
No matter how far I go, I can never reach it. What, then, is the purpose of utopia? It is to cause us to advance.
Eduardo Hughes Galeano

The “paradox” is only a conflict between reality and your feeling of what reality “ought” to be.
Richard Feynman

Perceive that which cannot be seen with the eye.
Miyamoto Musashi

Every man gets a narrower and narrower field of knowledge in which he must be an expert in order to compete with other people. The specialist knows more and more about less and less and finally knows everything about nothing.
Konrad Lorenz

Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness.
Chuang-tzu

There are two kinds of climbers, those who climb because their heart sings when they’re in the mountains, and all the rest.
Alex Lowe

Changing the world begins with the very personal process of changing yourself, the only place you can begin is where you are, and the only time you can begin is always now.
Gary Zukav

Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.
G. K. Chesterton

No army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come.
Victor Hugo

The major problems in the world are the result of the difference between how nature works and the way people think.
Gregory Bateson

What a wonderful life I’ve had!  I only wish I’d realized it sooner.
Colette

The more a human being feels himself a self, tries to intensify this self and reach a never-attainable perfection, the more drastically he steps out of the center of being.
Eugene Herrigel

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost

Each blade of grass has its spot on earth whence it draws its life, its strength; and so is man rooted to the land from which he draws his faith together with his life.
Joseph Conrad

I wonder how long this word will last, governed exclusively by the merciless, inhuman and immoral criteria of global economy.
Seeing the shadow of distant islands, I imagined one still inhabited by a tribe of poets set aside for when, after the middle age of materialism, humanity will have to start to put other values into his existence.
Tiziano Terzani

The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature.
Joseph Campbell

Great things are done when men and mountains meet.
William Blake

Out beyond our ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
Rumi

It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men’s hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of air that emanation from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit.
Robert Louis Stevenson

My heart that was rapt away by the wild cherry blossoms will it return to my body when they scatter?
Kotomichi

Above all, do not lose your desire to walk.  Every day I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness.  I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it.
Soren Kierkegaard

We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.
Native American Proverb

Walking is the great adventure, the first meditation, a practice of heartiness and soul primary to humankind.  Walking is the exact balance between spirit and humility.
Gary Snyder

A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.
Lao Tzu

The man with the backpack is never lost. No matter whither he may stray, his food and shelter are right with him, and home is wherever he may choose to stop.”
Horace Kephart

The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.
Alan Watts

It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters in the end.
Ursula K. LeGui

Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.
John Lennon

A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.
Henry David Thoreau

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt

All human beings are also dream beings. Dreaming ties all mankind together.
Jack Kerouac

When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.
Jimi Hendrix

Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out going to the mountains is going home; that wilderness is a necessity…
John Muir

Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.
Kahlil Gibran

My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I’m happy. I can’t figure it out. What am I doing right?
Charles Schulz

We are here and it is now. Further than that all human knowledge is moonshine.
H.L.Mencken

Some men see things as they are and ask why. Others dream things that never were and ask why not.
George Bernard Shaw

Let the beauty we love be what we do.
Mevlana Jelalu’ddin Rumi

Every situation, every moment is of infinite worth for it is representative of a whole eternity.
John Wolfgang Goethe

Be yourself; everybody else is already taken.
Oscar Wilde

When you realize how perfect everything is you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky.
Siddhartha Gautama Buddha

The only Zen you find on the tops of mountains is the Zen that you bring up there.
Robert M. Pirsing

When your mind is empty of prejudices you can see the Tao. When your hearth is empty of desires you can follow the Tao.
Master Lu

I don’t climb mountains. Mountains climb me. The mountain is myself. I climb on myself.
Nanao Sasaki

And if there is not any such thing as long time, nor the rest of our lives, nor from now on, but there is only now, then now is thing to praise and I am very happy with it.
Ernest Hemingway

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
An eternity in an hour.
William Blake

Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere.
Blaise Pascal

Trees are the earth’s endless effort to speak to the listening heaven.
Rabindranath Tagore

Climb up on some hill at sunrise. Everybody needs perspective once in a while, and you’ll find it there.
Robb Sagendorph

Keep your face always toward the sunshine – and shadows will fall behind you.
Walt Whitman

Be as simple as you can be; you will be astonished to see how uncomplicated and happy your life can become. Paramahansa Yogananda

If one way be better than another, that you may be sure is Nature’s way.
Aristotle

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.
Albert Camus

Walks.  The body advances, while the mind flutters around it like a bird.
Jules RenardBefore I had studied Zen for thirty years, I saw mountains as mountains, and rivers as rivers.
When I arrived at a more intimate knowledge, I came to the point where I saw that mountains are not mountains, and rivers are not rivers.
But now that I have got its very substance I am at rest.
For it’s just that I see mountains once again as mountains,
and rivers once again as rivers.
Ching-yuanEverywhere is walking distance if you have the time.
Steven WrightI like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me.
Fred AllenIt’s never too late to have a happy childhood.
Tom RobbinsTime is in the mind, space is in the mind. The law of cause and effect is also a way of thinking. In reality all is here and now and all is one. Multiplicity and diversity are in the mind only.
Nisargadatta MaharajWhat is mind? No matter. What is matter? Never mind.    George Berkeley 

We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.
Aldo Leopold

The real trick to life is not to be in the know, but to be in the mystery.
Fred Alan Wolf

It is not down in any map; true places never are.
Herman Melville

Remember when life’s path is steep, keep your mind even.
Horace

Our true home is in the present moment.  To live in the present moment is a miracle.  The miracle is not to walk on water.  The miracle is to walk on the green Earth in the present moment…
Thich Nhat Hanh

A radical inner transformation and rise to a new level of consciousness might be the only real hope we have in the current global crisis brought on by the dominance of the western mechanistic paradigm.
Stanislav Grof

Life is too important to be taken seriously.
Oscar Wilde

There is nothing like walking to get the feel of a country.  A fine landscape is like a piece of music; it must be taken at the right tempo.  Even a bicycle goes too fast.
Paul Scott Mowrer

To get or not to get what we desire can be equally disappointing.
Epictetus

If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.
William Blake

Create each day anew by clothing yourself with heaven and earth, bathing yourself with wisdom and love, and placing yourself in the heart of Mother Nature.
Morihei Ueshiba

It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.
Charles Darwin

Each time dawn appears,the mystery is there in its eternity.
Arthur Rimbaud

The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise grows it under his feet.
James Openheim

In some mysterious way woods have never seemed to me to be static things. In physical terms, I move through them; yet in metaphysical ones, they seem to move through me.
John Fowles

No man can cross the same river twice because neither the man nor the river are the same.
Heraclitus

If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere.
Vincent Van Gogh

Yes, I am going into the woods; I am going into the unity of all things.
Hermann Hesse

It seems to me that the natural world is the greatest source of excitement; the greatest source of visual beauty; the greatest source of intellectual interest. It is the greatest source of so much in life that makes life worth living.
David Attenborough

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