Dawn & dusk, alike to me are pure.
Ten-thousand flailing tendrils of Light.
With mind clean & hands sure,
I worship Sun by Day & Moon by Night.

By the late 1800s the earlier mining booms were over. Dredge boats, which employed relatively few people, began operating in the area in 1898 and worked the valley floor until 1942. Thinking the Tiger Placers Company would provide jobs during the national depression, Breckenridge Town officials allowed the Tiger #1 Gold Dredge to chew its way from the northern town limits through to the south end of Main Street. The two-story, pontoon boat supported an armature that carried a line of moving buckets that was capable of digging up placer mining ground to depths of 70 feet in the riverbed. The dredge removed all vegetation and buildings in its path. The riverbed was literally turned upside-down. Fine soils of the river bottom were either sent to the depths below or deposited downstream as sediment. The riverbed and bedrock below were dredged up to the surface. As a result, few historic buildings survived on the west side of the Blue River. World War II finally silenced the dredge, and the population in Breckenridge declined to approximately 254 individuals. 

Recycled Art by the River...

Whenever I leave the Woods for the City,

I reflect on Emerson & Thoreau (& especially Thoreau's scorn for the habits & behaviours of the City); & I cannot help but feel that they were not speaking of Breckenridge.

Here, the City marries Nature around her.

Here, brilliant little Foxes use pedestrian-crossings, & slow (fat) Robins in the little streets are given right-of-way.

Here, the High Rocky's Sun bathes us all; "man & beast" alike.

We are all equal beneath this Sun;

Creatures born of Nature, into Nature, & who shall return to her again in Death.

#thank-you-Joseph-Campbell

"Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.” -
Rumi

Lift the veil from your heart,
You will find all you are seeking.

What dare we take from heaven's cup
With fire brushing Mountain tops,
With Sunlight burnished on her tops;
Where from her peaks, the snow-melt plops,
Where from her bluffs the awed heart drops,
And from her cliffs the bold heart stops.

What dare we dream when from the vial
Of Skye & Stone, pure liquid pours?
From deep recesses in her core,
Whence River maidens swiftly bore;
Their Springly task, a frigid chore,
Along the Forest's verdant floor.

What dare we learn from Wood & Leaf;
Alemebic pair that shade our heads;
And bid us bow with sacred dread,
Beneath the tow'ring Pines outspread;
Our also-tow'ring souls be fed,
When Spirit with the Woods be wed.