Thresholds continued…

As I continue to walk with the reflections from the first chapter of Christine Valters Paintner’s book, The Soul’s Slow Ripening: 12 Celtic Practices for Seeking the Sacred, today spoke to my heart and soul. Chapter One, The Practice of Thresholds, was on my mind as we went to spend some time in our backyard, Rocky Mountain National Park.

Sprague Lake is one of the more popular and typically crowded spots in the park for our guests/visitors. However, we found another spot to park and went “off trail” for our hike. The above picture was taken as we left the quiet of a lightly travelled path along a river and came back to “civilization.” It hit me as I looked back on the path we had been walking… it had been a quiet, holy, and thin place for us. We wandered along paths that the Moose family had walked. Yet as we crossed this threshold, we were returning to the crowds of visitors. In that moment I realized that we had been on holy ground. We may not have found our Moose family on this particular trek, but the spirit of our friends was close by.

You never know when you are going to encounter the Holy… you never know when Spirit is going to catch your attention… the Threshold experiences are there… we simply need to be attuned to them and open to the Spirit’s nudging.