
There are a few, and only a few sights and experiences in my life which have made me aware of the Presence of the Divine. I long ago eschewed religion. Men (usually) take a perfectly good set of spiritual beliefs and begin mucking about with it. The result is religion. I consider myself to be a spiritual person. I stopped considering myself to be a religious person a long time ago.
The winter night sky in Colorado is a sight which kept me connected to the sense of the Divine, both before and after I abandoned religion. Even now, just the sight of it in a photograph, as in the one above, is enough to send a shiver down my spine, and bring back a rush of memories of winter nights there. Memories which create again that sense of Presence in my heart and soul.
My heart has been broken and my soul tarnished considerably since I left Colorado, almost 40 years ago. Nevertheless, a moment of serendipity in searching for an illustration to accompany this post reconnects me with that awareness of the Divine, however you define (or do not define) it.
When I’m looking ahead into 2020 without much hope, either for myself personally or for the world in general, stumbling across this picture reminds me of the lesson of the whispers in the hush of those Colorado winter nights. All is one. Love is all. The rest is illusion, misunderstanding, or mere detail.