Sitting down to write this week's blog post, I was reminded of my very first, back in September, 2012. I had just returned from a glorious 50 mile backpacking trip around Oregon's Three Sisters. The photo didn't do justice to the Wizard-of-Oz-poppy-field effect of the blankets of perfumed lupine we'd traversed.
I remember on that trip being filled with wonder at the stupendous natural world in which I'm lucky enough to live. And equally filled with wonder at the work I get to do. I had just completed my first year of work as a Life-Cycle Celebrant and my time on the trail had me savoring the extraordinary privilege of accompanying families and communities through life's most sacred passages.
That Three Sisters trip was in the company of old college friends, Richard and Colleen, along with their daughter Andrea and her fiance Chase. I'd attended Rich and Colleen's wedding in Yosemite Valley 30 years ago, and Andrea had accompanied her brothers and parents to the White Salmon ceremony Amber and I created for our relationship. And so it created something of a magical circle that Annie and Chase booked me to officiate their wedding on that trip.
I remember on that trip being filled with wonder at the stupendous natural world in which I'm lucky enough to live. And equally filled with wonder at the work I get to do. I had just completed my first year of work as a Life-Cycle Celebrant and my time on the trail had me savoring the extraordinary privilege of accompanying families and communities through life's most sacred passages.
That Three Sisters trip was in the company of old college friends, Richard and Colleen, along with their daughter Andrea and her fiance Chase. I'd attended Rich and Colleen's wedding in Yosemite Valley 30 years ago, and Andrea had accompanied her brothers and parents to the White Salmon ceremony Amber and I created for our relationship. And so it created something of a magical circle that Annie and Chase booked me to officiate their wedding on that trip.
That sense of magic, of unexpected encounters with what can only be called the Divine, of experiencing life as sacred - coming from my most rational of upbringings, where every dinnertime conversation was fact-checked by the nearby Encyclopedia Britannica - my growing relationship with the unseen world is a welcome revelation.
Rich and Colleen and Amber and I embarked on another 50-miler earlier this month, to the high country of Yosemite. We took in the big splendors, of course, from the six high mountain passes we topped (three over 10,000 feet). But we also marveled at the little things.
The stone triangle inside a square inside a circle hidden in a grove of ancient trees on a rock ledge in a campsite we'd been tempted to bypass on our last night.
The string of five pack horses who were inexplicably roaming free through the meadows surrounding unnamed lakes above 9,000 feet, no wrangler in sight (we found an abandoned halter on the trail a few miles below the next day).
The rise of the supermoon over lakes awash in reflected alpenglow. A baptismal dip into those same sun-warmed lakes. The heartbeat of life everywhere.
Rich and Colleen and Amber and I embarked on another 50-miler earlier this month, to the high country of Yosemite. We took in the big splendors, of course, from the six high mountain passes we topped (three over 10,000 feet). But we also marveled at the little things.
The stone triangle inside a square inside a circle hidden in a grove of ancient trees on a rock ledge in a campsite we'd been tempted to bypass on our last night.
The string of five pack horses who were inexplicably roaming free through the meadows surrounding unnamed lakes above 9,000 feet, no wrangler in sight (we found an abandoned halter on the trail a few miles below the next day).
The rise of the supermoon over lakes awash in reflected alpenglow. A baptismal dip into those same sun-warmed lakes. The heartbeat of life everywhere.
With every step, the anxieties of daily life felt more remote. The wonder of it all, thump-thumping in my chest.
I returned to a week in which I helped two families say farewell to their beloved dead, supported an extraordinary young woman in preparing for her own death, and celebrated the impending changes in a family about to welcome a new child. The wonder of it all, thump-thumping in my chest.
I returned to a week in which I helped two families say farewell to their beloved dead, supported an extraordinary young woman in preparing for her own death, and celebrated the impending changes in a family about to welcome a new child. The wonder of it all, thump-thumping in my chest.
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