Spiritual Landscapes

I spent last week in the Wind River region of Wyoming. There were petroglyphs carved into the rock walls near the cabin where I was staying —some dated 10,000 years old. Ten thousand years ago the Wind River Valley was emerging from the ice age, with retreating alpine glaciers, cooler temperatures, expanding pine forests *****and the First Peoples of the region. If you know what to look for, you’ll find flint shards and other remnants of their early stone tool making. As I hiked up the mountain side into the pine woods, I thought about how the present day conifers are the great, great, great (add several more greats) grandchildren of the pines that looked out over that ancient chain of three glacial lakes. The mountains are old, the view is old, at night the light from a million stars is old. The spirit of that place is heavy with time. The past is so present in that valley —the past is not even past, but rather infused into everything you see.

There is something about such an expansive landscape that orients a person in the vastness of things. In a wide and ancient landscape I sense my smallness, my entire life no more than a lighting bug flash. And yet, I find my heart expands in ancient places, my spirit opens and my sense of being part of a larger story grows wider.