Holy Places
You can find them everywhere.
How did I not see them before?
I knew the feeling of a holy space.
It had been imprinted on my heart before.
I felt the feeling first in the obvious spaces.
You know, the temples.
Made of stone and religious text — yes, one version is a building.
Made of mountain and moss,
or perhaps made of sand and water — yes, another version is the temple made of earth.
These were the spaces which I trusted to be holy.
Then my life halted.
In a moment all of my life experiences seemed to prove irrelevant.
I lost a parent — half of what made me.
In the moment of hearing the news, every particle of my spirit exploded.
As I crumbled on the floor at a baggage claim — I thought, “Here? I can’t be here!”
In some altered state of consciousness, I gathered up the pieces of my heart.
Finding myself in a bathroom stall of the airport, unsure of how I got there, I silently screamed.
Burying my face in my folded forearms, pressed against the cool tile wall.
A most raw, intimate process happened in a bathroom stall, in a foreign airport.
I realized a bit later, this, too, is a holy place.
How many people are within their most vulnerable state in these places of business-as-usual?
The airport, the office, the car.
Does it matter the setting?
Wherever you are, the fragility of life is also present.
Wherever you are, you can pass-on.
Wherever you are, you can be re-born.
We are holders of this precious and fleeting gift of life force, some call Prana.
The palpable and curious sensations of heart and spirit live within us always.
How did I not see them before?
These holy places, they are everywhere.
In loving memory of my Dad, Gary- I miss you every day.
