The light was so bright in the Blackcomb Mountains of Western Canada.  It seemed to burn with a clarity that incinerated the inconsequential and illuminated the profound. The mountains were so vast, yet there seemed no room for most of the things that fill my life ... my career, my accomplishments, my knowledge, my thoughts ... all seemed like nothing on the mountain.

But I did feel something real up there in the mountains. The heather with its fragile beauty, reminded me that some of my most tender feelings had real substance. Feelings like the tiny white bell-like flowers of the heather. Delicate, yet  strong enough to endure year after year in the harsh mountain climate. The mountain light helps one see what is real in their life.

Heather is the only wild-flower on the mountain that does not die back to the ground in the Winter.  This tough, little shrub endures under several feet of snow and ice.  In July, its icy prison melts away and its flowers glow in the Summer sun.