Sacred Spaces

I've been blessed, since I moved to the country, with several sacred places - Praying Places I call them - with reverence and truth - not in the typical slightly ironic fashion of TheQueen's customary designating style. The first time a place shot its transforming energy into me was when we had been here only a few weeks; a few constantly raining weeks in July. I was crossing the middle swamp on planks BD had laid across the wettest places and a mist of rain began to fall, turning everything to silver. A hum began inside my head and energy flowed through me, though I couldn't move. Now, no matter the season, when I cross the swamp bridge I remember the day the world turned silver.

My garden corner was another spot that seemed always to be full of something more - something beyond what I can touch and see, but not what I can feel. Well. In fact - I have see some things in the garden that are beyond this world. I mentioned it once to my girlfriend Toni and she said, with complete understanding "Of course. It's a matrix point." When I questioned her she said "It's where spirits pass in and out of this life."

hmm.

There is a place on our lane where I can also go to pray - and there used to be a spot where, whenever I was driving away from home, I would begin praying the moment I drove past it. Several terrific storms, hurricanes and more ordinary, though gigantic, summer storms have torn that place up so much that I am not quite so moved anymore. Now, when I drive to work in the morning I just remember how I would begin praying and somehow... it feels different.

A year ago we rented out White Oak Swamp to some hunters who built a maze of wide smooth paths through it; avenues I can walk on without being ripped to shreds by blackberries and walking sticks. As soon as hunting season was over I began traipsing it, mostly with BD & dogs, but sometimes just all by myself. I'll often call him before I leave work and if he starts walking out there we usually meet up at the same time. I also love to just walk straight over there from home, loving the idea of legs as transportation. It's about a 4 mile stroll though we can make it longer by exploring every path.

Yesterday we ambled on over, my first walk through it since the winter rains filled all the puddles and low spots. The moment I stepped beneath the forest canopy I felt it - that thrum that makes my torso shiver - that physical attestation that tells me I'm in another sacred space. My face flushed as I stood, breathing in the delicate air. A word whispered in my ear ... Gaia - earth goddess - - mother nature. And I knew. I was in another sacred space. I'd had inklings before that here was a place to come pray - I had felt the peace that walking on this bit of earth could bring to me - but this was the first time I heard the divine speaking to me, not as succor for trouble, but as part of my daily life. It said "come to me. I am here. You belong. You are loved"

Truly. I am blessed. We all are. The world is full of sacred spaces. We have only to walk quietly out to them and let them speak to us. May you find a sacred space today.

The Life Force

Many of you will remember Hurricane Irene - not just as a weather channel news item but because you felt the brunt of it's fury. We're only just now clearing off the last of the downed trees and I believe my guys will be clearing yet another path today. Our eyes have gotten used to paths walled in by sawn off limbs. Our hearts are fairly numb to the piercing we get from our sylvan losses, most of the time, till we take a walk in the forest and come upon one of the great holes in the canopy and have to deal with it again. 

There are a few places where huge holes gape upwards like giant mouths. In this photo all the white used to be tree limbs, sheltering the soft leaf strewn floor, giving off a woodsy scent and furnishing countless homes for numberless squirrels. 

On Sunday BD and I took our regular stroll around the property and we came upon a sight I never see this close - red oak blossoms and tiny yellow oak leaves unfurling. Usually when an oak tree is this fully blooming it's also 50 feet high. This behemoth, though down, is definitely not out yet. Along it's entire length are supple limbs and twigs and sprigs, gushing with life bringing sap. And sure as I'm writing this, there will be one limb that out-thrives the rest - that insists upon living - that will thicken and lengthen and one day will form a strange crooked tree trunk. Because the life force swings back against the inevitable pull of death. It's just that way. In the words of Frost:

Nature's first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leafs a flower;

But only so an hour

then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.