Extreme beauty

  Teslin, Yukon, Canada
Monday, July 23, 2007

There not much to Teslin, the first village across the Yukon border. You can zip through, just stopping for gas on the way to Whitehorse. There's a small Tlingit museum, a nice motel, as few other motels and gas stations. Down the road is a place advertised in Milepost, the "bible" of Northern travel as the best salmon bake ever. It's called Mukluk Annie's. You get a free campsite and a houseboat ride on Lake Teslin if you have dinner. I arrived at 9:10 PM and missed dinner by 10 minutes. I could camp, but they had little cabins for a reasonable price so I decided to stay in a cabin instead.

Keesha and I wandered down the path to the lake and were joined by a deliriously happy chocolate lab puppy. I called him Buddy! Buddy and Keesha played together, bounding up and down the sandy beach, splashing in the water and digging in the sand. I grinned at them as I ambled along the water's edge feeling peaceful and held by the stillness of the deep, blue Yukon lake.
These are the moments in life that we live for-joy for joy's sake in nature's embrace.

As a matter of fact, I've felt peaceful ever since I crossed the border into the Yukon. It's like my entire body sighed and took a gigantic deep breath. You can breathe here. There are only 33,000 people in the Yukon. The air is clean and pure. The wilderness still exists. And people co-exist with the other beings of the land, like bears. It's like everyone has enough room to live the life they choose or were born into.

I paused and gazed out across the water. The sun was still in the sky, low but not yet setting. I could sense the presence of Spirit in this land more acutely than any time on this journey so far. My mind wandered back two years ago when I spent a few days on the shore of another powerful lake, Lake Superior and felt this palpable Divine presence. On that evening, just at dusk, I perched on cliffs above Lake Superior and held a ceremony for myself. I married my soul. With "Mother Superior" officiating and Keesha as my witness, I pledged that I would be true to my soul, my authentic self and that we would be one with God, the Great Spirit.

It was a beautiful ceremony. Powerful and sweet. Yet like any commitment, my resolve was tested and I plunged into two years of a crazy roller coaster ride of life. "Are you sure?" the Universe asks. "Is this what you really want?" When I replied yes again and again, Great Spirit seemed to look me over with a critical eye. "Okay, then. Well, that behavior needs to change and by the way, you need to take a good look at how you have treated others before and befriend that shadow side of yourself that you find uncomfortable to acknowledge." On and on it went. Maybe I withdrew my pledge to be one with Spirit somewhere along the way. The path was too painful. But not being on the path with the Great Mystery was worse that pain; it was a slow seeping of my spirit from my life.

Now I stood on the shores of Lake Teslin. I had tears in my eyes and prayed to the Great Spirit, "This is where I belong, this is who I am, connected to trees, to nature. I committed to you before and I took it back." I took off my shoes, dug my feet in the sand and exclaimed to the setting sun and the shimmering lake, "When I walk into this water, I commit again to be one with my soul to be one with you Great Spirit. I will never take it back. I need your help to do this" With Keesha and a puppy I called Buddy as my witnesses, I walked into the frigid, glacial water, my toes curling around the stones and spread my arms wide letting the waters bathe my body and the sun caress my heart.

In the past, I've expected something intense and dramatic from mystical moments and I've had a few of those moments. This evening, there was no major revelation, no extreme emotions, no deep, intense experience, no drama. It just felt right and good and beautiful. I am coming to know that the soft, still, gentle times hold more power than we know. And sweet, deep unexpected lakes lull us into moments that can affect us deeply. Lake Teslin sure did.

In the sky, the sun and the clouds painted riots of orange and yellow and pink in a sunset of such extreme beauty I had tears in my eyes and joy bursting with wings from my heart. I've watched the sun set in Key West, over the Pacific and in so many places. This was beyond them all and lasted for hours. I felt blessed.

After the spectacular show, Keesha, Buddy and I walked up the hill to my little cabin. It had to be close to midnight. Keesha said goodnight to Buddy, I rubbed his ears, pet his squirmy body, kissed his head and whispered thank you to him as his trotted away. Inside, my loyal companion and I curled up-me on the bed with springs I could feel poking my in the back but a bed and not the ground; Keesha in her bed on the floor-and sweetly, peacefully drifted off to sleep.