Thinness

                         Not long ago I took a drive to the top of the world and found and experienced what John O' Donohue calls "thin places." The clouds that day were hanging low at an elevation of eight-thousand feet. I've taken this Trail Ridge drive many many times, but have never been enveloped in clouds so thick and heavy.  It was a surreal feeling being surrounded by such beauty veiled in a curtain of soft loving light. The only view I had was from side to side, everything in front and back was completely obscured by the clouds. The image above was one of many images that were taken that day.                          
                   The Irish describe "thin places" as anyplace on earth where the veil separating the seen world from the unseen world is so slender, so permeable, that these two worlds can momentarily touch, even overlap. Thomas Keating also describes this phenomena in his video The  Eternal Now. He says," It is in this spot that the unseen breaks in upon the seen.  The sacred slips in through the apparently ordinary." Mahatma Gandhi described it this way: "There is an undefinable, mysterious power that pervades everything. I feel it, though I do not see it. It is this unseen power that makes itself felt and yet defies all proof, because it is so unlike all that I perceive through my senses. It transcends the senses."
                    The fortunate photographer is one who, finding such places, finds a way to capture that delicate veil hoping that a bit of the unseen will filter onto the final image. It may or may not. The transcendent is known to transcend cameras too.
                     John O'Donohue was an Irish Cathloic priest best known for his poems and books on spirituality. Some of my favortie books by him include: Anam Cara, Bless the Space Between Us, The invisible Embrace. If you have time, discover John O'Donohue and his many poems and books.