It is a place where the boundaries between you and the earth and the heavens are permeable. It is a place where you are suffused with a warm glow. It is as if the atoms in your body extend out to the earth, the tree, and the sea, and the atoms of those places mix with yours. Your body hums, and your vision blurs and sharpens at the same time. There is kinetic energy beneath and on top of your skin.
You have come upon a thin place and the distance between you and the earth and the sky has changed. It’s like a well-worn piece of cloth on your favorite shirt has thinned and you can see what is underneath. What you don’t normally see. In Celtic lore, thin places are locales in which the veil between this world and the otherworld is porous.
I first experienced a thin place when I was about 5 years old, the first time I left the concrete canyon of Los Angeles. Up in the San Bernadino Mountains amid the giant pines. Their magnetic and benevolent force drew me to them and I felt I would be happy never leaving that place. Here I felt better than OK. I felt a part of all things rather than alone. Thin places impart a sense of wholeness without drugs. I have no idea how this happens.
When I was in Iceland, I felt the whole country was a thin place. You could feel the living sense of the land there more than in any place I have ever been. Sometimes I feel the thin place when looking out my own window onto the trees and the southern end of the Salish Sea. When I open myself up to the place, I don’t see just the surface of the sea, I can see beneath the surface. I see the egg yolk jellyfish. I see the kelp, the seals, and the basking shark. And when I look at the trees, I see the water moving up and throughout their hundred feet height above the ground. I see their roots and limbs communicating. I see the poetry of the earth and I am at one with our shared life.
The thin places are out there waiting to be found.
— DanielSouthGate
You have come upon a thin place and the distance between you and the earth and the sky has changed. It’s like a well-worn piece of cloth on your favorite shirt has thinned and you can see what is underneath. What you don’t normally see. In Celtic lore, thin places are locales in which the veil between this world and the otherworld is porous.
I first experienced a thin place when I was about 5 years old, the first time I left the concrete canyon of Los Angeles. Up in the San Bernadino Mountains amid the giant pines. Their magnetic and benevolent force drew me to them and I felt I would be happy never leaving that place. Here I felt better than OK. I felt a part of all things rather than alone. Thin places impart a sense of wholeness without drugs. I have no idea how this happens.
When I was in Iceland, I felt the whole country was a thin place. You could feel the living sense of the land there more than in any place I have ever been. Sometimes I feel the thin place when looking out my own window onto the trees and the southern end of the Salish Sea. When I open myself up to the place, I don’t see just the surface of the sea, I can see beneath the surface. I see the egg yolk jellyfish. I see the kelp, the seals, and the basking shark. And when I look at the trees, I see the water moving up and throughout their hundred feet height above the ground. I see their roots and limbs communicating. I see the poetry of the earth and I am at one with our shared life.
The thin places are out there waiting to be found.
— DanielSouthGate
Wonderful description of a thin place. You are fortunate to have those experiences.
ReplyDelete“There are no unsacred places; there are only sacred places and desecrated places.” ― Wendell Berry. Here's to healing!
ReplyDeleteI wonder if my low-class ol' street, with no curbs and a weird assortment of small houses and duplexes, the blocky brick apartments, the convenience store, the stumps of huge trees that people felt they had to cut down for some reason, a few daffodils still blooming... I wonder if that could ever be a "thin place." Your writing does beg the question: Is the thin-ness in the soul of the experiencer? (Macoff)
ReplyDeleteI don't know. I know I didn't feel thinness until I first left my concrete neighborhood, but that could just be the soul of this particular daydreamer.
DeleteBeautifully described - both the places and your experience. You are fortunate for the experiences and for the gift of writing so eloquently about them. Likewise, I am fortunate to read your work. Thank you.
ReplyDelete