Sacred Ordinary

I have been thinking lately how bleak life would be without the sacred, without the mystery of beauty.

These things of course are personal to each of us. What is sacred and beautiful to one person might not ever be seen by another.

I have been thinking about this a lot, and have made a lost of things I consider sacred, and of the beauty associated with them.

The first sacred thing has to be wilderness and solitude. These things would have to be my best story, and my best prayer, for them to continue.

beauty is a family of otters playing on the bank of a stream, way back in a wilderness area, who after a few minutes suddently vanish as they sense my presence

beauty is the mystery as darkness overtakes the forest, as the rose alpenglow fades on the alpine peaks. beauty is the stillness of night, the thousands of stars visible through the tops of the spruce and the pines.

sacred is sharing this, in writing, once in a while getting close to the feeling I have had up there

and sacred is telling stories about it, and knowing I am doing good when a class of fourth graders is quiet listening to you describe how smart grizzly bears are, as evidenced by how much they play. Picture three grizzly bear cubs sliding down a snowbank, and their huge mother joining them, using her back as a tobaggan, and roaring with delight.

Sacred is an adult walking with children, experiencing the unique of this day, in eight Bull snakes we find, in the deer standing in the shade of the ponderosa pines, that the children discover themselves. Beauty is the heavenly aroma we walk into, from the large golden currant with its yellow blossoms. The same thing happened last year.

and Beauty is us all looking upon the male eagle in Barr Lake, on the log 100 yards out onto Barr Lake, with snow-covererd longs peak behind it. 'Remember that kids' I tell them. 'There is not many times in your life you will see something like that.'

Sacred is community, all the small houses I pass on my bicycle, tulips int he front yard, children's toys in the back, a floppy ear dog running the length of the yard to bark at me as I pass.

Community is also the familar faces I see at a dance, smiling with enthusiasm and warmth. Sacred is song and dance and music, dancing so hard that my shirt is wet with sweat, spinning her so fast their her long hair lifts up and brushes across her face, feeling the excitement in her touch, feeling the connection with the music and the crowd, all with hearts on the same beat, of saturday night, of celebration.

and beaty is the violin hauntingly beautiful as we waltz, my partner responding gently to my touch, feeling her breath, the firm and aoftness of her back, stopping and leeting her spin, then stepping in beside her.
and sacred is Colorado timberline, where I always camp, on a ridge where you can walk up a hundred yards to the alpine tundra, which as as pure a place of freedom as exists on this earth. You can look down into the tall spruce and fir forests, shady and quiet, where the elk like to take cover. You can see the rocky peaks, and the golden light on them at sunrise, the clouds swirling above them and over their face.

Sacred is the Colorado columbine, yellow blue in the last light of the day, on rockys with the forest below, moving slightly from the evening breeze.


Beauty is knowing that even though nature is harsh and unforgiving, it is also effused with love, from the divine,

that I feel sitting up there after dinner, as the stars come up, with a dog on each side of me, leaning it to me. They have a better sense of the mystery up there than I do. They turn their ears to sounds beyond my ears.

sacred is knowing it all all really sums down to love, of community, of song and dance, of the companionship of my dogs, of the mountains and wilderness. A life lived in love is one full of gratiude, for all that have been given, for the sacred in this day, the beauty of this earth, the blessing of this life.