The big sky country

The big sky country

Many Korean visitors have a comment about this area: "There is nothing to see." Korea is where 70% of the land is mountains and it is surrounded by the sea on three sides. The location is geopolitically complicated but it is a beautiful country. The visitors are used to seeing the beauty from the mountains. They also see the sea. It is very different here. When they are here, there is nothing to see. That is the common complaint.

I believe that the beauty is not only out there but rather inside of your mind and heart. Both the weather inside and outside need to be cultivated.

Native Americans named this area as "The Big Sky Country." The viewd of this area are endless prairies that touch the sky. Is there nothing to see in between? Spend time with nature, there are many things you can find in between. Depending on where the clouds, sun and moon are, you will see different views and unique beauty. There is not only one type of beauty. Wild flowers, tall grasses, birds, many layers of green. 

My children spent time together with me on Saturday because I taught in the evening. I had the idea, if I cannot spend time with them now, I will never have any chance to spend time with them and will never be able to teach them who is their father. It took a while to persuade them. Once I got their agreement, we did many things together. One of our favorite activities was I took them out with a camera and drove outside of town to take pictures of the prairie wild flowers. Usually we could see many beautiful flowers in the ditch in country road or near rail ways. My two daughters are more interested in taking the smells of flowers and happy to watch. However, my son actively took pictures. At the end of day, I took many negatives to Walmart, printed them out to find the good pictures and enlarged them, brought home with wall frames. A weeks later, I displayed them. When they walked downstairs, I showed them their pictures in frames. Oh! It's beautiful! Stunning! Great! My son asked me, whose pictures are they? I was laughing and said to them all of you did them! 

One visitors offered my son to sell his picture. He sold it for $50.00. A person who bought a picture thought that picture was very good picture for her. It was a valuable experience for my children that some said the picture were very beautiful. There was a flower picture, I don’t know the name of it, only I remember it was a red flower and the middle of flower was black. It makes strong contrast.

If my children are not able to cultivate their heart to see the beauty, I am sure they will not come back to this area. If they think there is nothing to see in this area, they will not appreciate this area and themselves. If we cultivate ourselves to see the beauty from our back yard, then we will see the beauty every way. I travel with family every summer all over the U.S. It is very different, one place to another, but each place has its own beauty.