Where Peace Broke Through the Pain

Castle Rocks, western Kansas — September 10, 2026

Every year, sometime before September 11, I go away.

It has become something of a tradition.

I find a quiet place, preferably somewhere remote, where there are few people, few roads, and even fewer reminders of the world I am trying to leave behind for a little while.

Some might wonder why.

For me, September 11 is not a day of history.

It is a day I remember too well.

I was assigned to the Joint Staff in the Pentagon when our nation was attacked. Another friend and I were away from Washington that morning, working on a major force study for the Secretary of Defense. We began the day with a morning run, then returned to our hotel rooms to get cleaned up before a full day of meetings.

Instead, we watched the television as the World Trade Center burned. I called my boss at the Pentagon. "Dan, you need to get back here. We have a problem."I began making arrangements to return to Washington.

Then the Pentagon was attacked.

The flights were grounded, so my friend and I took our rental car and drove through the night toward Washington. When we finally returned, there was work to be done. National security. Response. The people who were missing. The people who would never return.

We lost friends and colleagues.

And we went to work.

There are some days that become part of the story of a nation.

And there are some days that become part of the story of your own life in ways you would rather not revisit.

September 11 is one of those days for me.

So I leave.

Not because I have forgotten.

Not because I don't care.

Perhaps simply because, after all these years, I have no desire to spend another September 11 answering questions about something I would rather leave behind.

I need quiet.

This year, quiet took me to Castle Rocks in western Kansas.

A Place With Nothing to Distract You

Castle Rocks is one of those places that seems almost misplaced.

Three great chalk spires rise from the middle of the high prairie, surrounded by an enormous expanse of western Kansas.

There are no city lights.

No traffic.

No buildings.

No artificial noise.

Just prairie and sky.

After dark, the silence becomes something you can almost feel.

Crickets.

Frogs.

The wind moving through the rock formations.

And, every now and then, the distant voices of a pack of coyotes somewhere out on the prairie.

That is about it.

And that was exactly what I needed.

I arrived Thursday evening, September 10, and settled in as darkness came.

There was no moon that night.

Only the stars.

Then the Milky Way appeared.

It stretched across the southern sky, its faint band of light rising above the prairie and passing behind the great chalk formations. I had come late in the season for it.

The nights are already beginning to change. Before long, the Milky Way will disappear from our evening skies, and we'll have to wait until sometime next spring to see that familiar river of stars return.

But on this night, everything came together.

Clear skies.

No moon.

No clouds.

No artificial light.

Just darkness—and the light of our galaxy.

I set up my camera and waited.

And for a while, I didn't think about September 11.

I didn't think about Washington.

I didn't think about the Pentagon.

I didn't think about the questions.

I simply looked up.

Peace in Creation

There is something humbling about standing beneath a sky like that.

The rocks that seem so large during the day become small beneath the heavens.

And the things that seem so large in our minds can become quiet for a little while.

I have spent much of my life traveling—to places far away and places just down a lonely Kansas road.

I've hiked trails.

I've crossed mountains.

I've sat beside rivers and watched wildlife.

But sometimes the journey isn't about getting somewhere.

Sometimes it is simply about getting away.

Away from the noise.

Away from the expectations.

Away from memories that have become too heavy.

And finding a place where you can simply be still.

That night at Castle Rocks, something happened that I didn't expect.

Peace broke through the space of pain.

Not by erasing the past.

Not by changing what happened.

And certainly not by making those memories disappear.

They are still there.

But for a few hours, beneath that enormous Kansas sky, they did not occupy all the space.

There was room for something else.

Wonder.

Silence.

Gratitude.

Peace.

I looked through my camera at those three ancient spires standing beneath the Milky Way, and I was reminded again why I keep doing this.

Photography is not really about the camera.

It is about noticing.

It is about slowing down long enough to see what is already there.

Sometimes it is a bird hidden in the grass.

Sometimes it is the last light falling across a prairie.

Sometimes it is three chalk formations standing alone beneath a sky filled with stars.

And sometimes, if we are fortunate, we discover something we weren't looking for at all.

A little peace.

I was thankful for the journey to Castle Rocks.

Thankful for the darkness.

Thankful for the silence.

Thankful for the stars.

And thankful that, for one September night in western Kansas, peace broke through the space of pain.

— Dan Nobles

Kansas Thru My Lens