There are inspiring places I return to time and again in my mind.  The English Cotswolds, which represent for me a simple, profoundly human, and deeply spiritual way of life, are one such favorite destination.

 

From our first stop at Cobblestone Lane, we've followed a meandering footpath to a bridge, a brook, and a mill, considering at every turn the nature of time and the ways we can live in harmony with a world whose rhythms are utterly graceful and slow. 

 

Throughout the series, I've imagined that our journey would end at just such a destination as we discover in Cobblestone Evening.  We've come full circle with this classic English village, which returns us to our imagined brook and bridge, and to some of the humble, utterly charming stone cottages we've visited along the way.

 

Fittingly, our ramble ends at just that breathless hour when the plump trout are biting in the brook, and stillness wraps the land in a fleecy blanket of perfect peace.

 

Grazing sheep symbolize the bucolic peacefulness of a pastoral scene that is best enjoyed in a sumptuous vision like that present in Cobblestone Evening.  This journey is at an end, but we know that others await. -- Thomas Kinkade