Tuesday, December 2, 2025
National parks have created a new religion, that of secular spirituality; they have created new pilgrimage centers, the National Parks; they have created a new breed of parishioners, the travelers who love nature.
We cannot experience the sacred or let creative and original ideas stir in our heart-minds while living a daily rut. Something has to shake us up, shatter our unexamined values, question our unanalyzed beliefs. This happens often midst the beauty of nature or listening to fascinating piece of music or viewing works of great masters. Nature, good books, and master artworks are all potent with enchantments. These magical things wait patiently for you to come to them. For you to cross the threshold from slumbering through life to living audaciously. You can’t encounter flowerbeds unless you take a stroll through the garden.
When you experience nature’s awe, you are humbled, you are torn apart. Only poetic language does justice to the experience you feel when you go through the portal that opens up an unfathomable realm. Always remember your inner mentor is present within you at each and every moment; so are the experiences of awe, wonder, and pleasure present outside you. You only have to be aware of them with your mindfulness. It gives meaning to your life. When you feel at one with everyone and everything around you, you have a sense of immortality.
When intellectual knowledge and emotional intelligence join, when visceral experience meets cognition, when the heart thinks and the mind feels, you come full circle and experience awe and wonderous delight.
All my life I have searched for purpose and meaning. What I have discovered with each “wow” is to keep changing and wondering. The meaning of life depends on our purpose. What is my calling? When you hear a call and it feels just right pay heed to the call and make it happen. Don’t ask for the destination just follow the path. Don’t ask for the fruit of your action, for the award, leave everything for the universe to complete. And watch how utterly mesmerized you will be by nature, by art, by poetry. They’d make your heart ache; they’d make you shed tears of poignant joy; they’d shift your understanding from “me” to “us.”
