little and unexpected

I'm currently enjoying the blessing of an 8-week Renewal Leave. It's lovely to have some time of sabbath. Perhaps I'll even take time to fill in some of the lovely things since my last blog post.

For today, though, I have just this little, unexpected thing to share: a wild orchid found this past week in Colorado's Rocky Mountain National Park.(Fingers included for scale.)
I'd hoped this would be the rare Calpyso Orchid, namesake for the Calypso Cascades near which I found this beauty. The internet tells me it is not; it is a Spotted Coralroot Orchid, lovely in its own right.

I'm still marveling at the realization that orchids grow wild in the Rockies. And that something so small can be so intricate, that something so lovely can thrive out of decaying wood, and at what worlds become visible to me when I take time to look.