Miles to go

The rain to the wind said,
You push and I’ll pelt.’
They so smote the garden bed
That the flowers actually knelt,
And lay lodged–though not dead.
I know how the flowers felt.

-Robert Frost

Each time I return to the Tetons I am overwhelmed by holiness. Even in the summer crowds, I am amazed by the personal, sacred nature of the experience.

There is an awe and a reverence there that I have never felt anywhere else.

It is also a place of deep teaching for me.  I have learned things in those mountains that I know were reserved for me to feel just in that sacred place.

The Tetons hold something so dear for me that in recent months they have provided the quiet place of healing that I have so needed.

A place with enough awe and quiet that I could finally hear.

“Perhaps your own reiterated cries deafen you to the voice you hoped to hear.” 

– C.S. Lewis

“You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you. It is easy to say you believe a rope to be strong and sound as long as you are merely using it to cord a box. But suppose you had to hang by that rope over a precipice. Wouldn’t you then first discover how much you really trusted it?…Only a real risk tests the reality of a belief.” 

– C.S. Lewis

Yellowstone and these woods near me are home now.  They are me and I am them.  Even so, I found myself the other day in the shadow of the Tetons, praying silently that I might stay, that I might keep the healing salve and comfort of their rest always.

The answer was quick.  I could visit, but I could not stay.  I have things to do and more to become.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

-Robert Frost