This little sequence had gone on for generations of bears and ant colonies, all led by a large black rock being tumbled slowly down the mountain, year after year, one platter-sized indentation after another. And the ants followed.

Even after all the Springs since that mountainside hike, it's hard to grasp the scale of synchronized evolutionary order that controls the natural world surrounding us. If I still lived in an urban area, I could have the impression that humans are running this show.

That personal awakening to an immense surrounding universe on this earth and so very far beyond actually began a long time ago. I believe that was when I walked out to the school bus and first noticed those tiny tracks in the snow, made so silently while I slept blissfully unaware in an old, warm house just a few yards away.

The lingering memory of that lone black rock on a Montana mountainside provides yet another in a lifelong series of inklings that have sketched a vague sense of and appreciation for the grand immutable design that is only partially accessible to our understanding when we stop and think about it a moment in the endless rush of modern life.

It makes me feel very small and humble.

Which, I've decided, is not a bad thing.