The Shock of the Real

A weird, lovely, fantastic object out of nature like Delicate Arch has the curious ablitiy to remind us—like rock and sunlight and wind wilderness—that out there is different world, older and greater and deeper by far than ours, a world which surrounds and sustains the little world of men as sea and sky surround sustain a ship. The shock of the real. For a little while we are again able to see, as the child sees, a world of marvels. For a few moments we discover that nothing can be taken for granted, for if this ring of stone is marvelous then all which shaped it is marvelous, and our journey here on earth, able to see and touch and hear in the midst of tangible and mysterious things-in-themselves, is the most strange and daring of adventures.

—Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire