Today, a long meander through the Black Hills and visiting the Crazy Horse Monument after a night in the shale-oil production center of America, Gillete, WY.

Yesterday I drove through a beautiful 110 mile stretch alongside winding rivers running past little farms and large holdings, horses and cattle mostly, and a 75 mph speed limit on a well-constructed and maintained two-lane State road. In one 20 minute period, I never saw another car, it was very refreshing.

As one approaches Gillete, a prosperous and busy little city, things started looking rather bleak with the vast pits of the mines and huge slag piles in many dozens of places as far as the eye can see. That’s the source of a thriving economy in that area with no thought or realistic memory of the former mining towns whose remains were turned into “Trading Posts” that now cater to tourists by selling fake Western and Indian clutter-stuff. Those new housing developments closer to the slag-piles than the towns won’t last more than another few years. Economic success and lots of new trucks and new stuff, and some price is just now being tabulated for some final total bill due sooner than later.

Just humans going about their lives in a culture that needs some help but is too busy to notice. That includes all of us. That special coffee from that special place in some impoverished country where coffee bean cultivation is destroying useful habitat, and yet it’s so delicious when it is ground and roasted and done in a “pour-over” (hmmmm,,what a concept:) Where people and the earth are mined for the profits and we assert our inherent right (It might be in the Constitution through the Foresight of The Founders), to enjoy on every street corner a Latte or a Cappuccino. We are all doing similar stuff with very similar intentions. Momentarily feel good while dreaming of contentment.

Simultaneously, we point fingers at each other and cannot see that the problem is not an us or a they, it’s merely that we are all just-a-little off in how we view the relationship of the World to Us and especially to the Me.

And, this is a beautiful country.

All these well-paved roads. I bet we have more well paved roads by milage than the rest of the world. I know, but look at all the State Highways and County Roads all of it?

Anyway, we can build just about as good as we destroy, we are adept at both. It’s the wrong kind of balance but it does point directly to something. What is that some thing for me?

Then again, we can’t really judge a balance as such, maybe it is merely choices we are trying to balance?

How do I actually

Be more mindful

Look for proper place

Rather than discarding,

Including all Things