I just returned from a visit to the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. The most impactful insight for me was that neither memory nor photographs had prepared me for the awe that the mountains inspire. There is no way to capture and take with you the depth of the valleys or the height of the steeps–even the stark blue of the sky or how low the clouds hang above you! You cannot wrap up the powerful energy the mountains contain and take it with you! You simply must keep going back to be again surprised at the majesty and splendor.
This reminded me of how those “aha” moments or “peak” experiences in life cannot be fully retained in our memories as well. We just cannot “hold on” to that moment when we taste the sense of “oneness of all things” or that “knowing” that all is as it needs to be. We must keep going back into that deep meditation or that sitting silently in nature and stilling our minds so that we can “listen” to that still small voice within.
This is precisely why our Spiritual journey is called a “practice.” We must keep doing what inspires that journey over and over again. For me that practice is morning practice of yoga, contemplative prayer, meditation, sitting in my circle of trees in the garden, and journaling. It is during this practice that, if I’m lucky, I will get a taste of that high, that moment of bliss or ecstasy, when I “know the Oneness of All That Is and that all is as it needs to be.” It is in this practice, as it is in visiting the mountains, that I know there is a Higher Power that sustains me even in the chaos and turmoil of conflict, politics, and climate change.
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