All in Sacred Places

Communing With Oahu

Atreyee Gupta
Family Travel, Life Lessons, Nature, Personal essay, Sacred Places

by Atreyee Gupta

 

The first time my father took me to the island of Oahu, it was not to see the popular beaches. Instead we went straight to the interior of the Hawaiian isle where dense wilderness overtakes the landscape, creating a virescence that leaps out at the eye in full three-dimensional glory. It was a capital sight for me, an immediate opening up of my senses to the wonder of nature’s artwork. Ever since, immersing myself in Oahu’s jungle trails has been a necessity, an addiction I cannot deny.  

The Lost Cliffs of Oahu by Trey Ratcliff via Flickr CCL.

For my father, whose own parents had taken him as a child to the depths of the Wai’anae Mountains, Oahu’s wild heart was the key that unlocked his soul, bringing him back to himself. Our hikes exploring Waimea Valley or the Hau’ula trails were times, he explained, for us to look into our hearts and see the best of ourselves reflected in the natural world. “Know yourself,” was a phrase he often quoted to me on our jaunts.

Silently crossing burbling streams or making our way deeper into the Ko’olau Range, we kept our senses alert for the sounds of bark and nuts crunching beneath our feet, the quick flash of a red-crested cardinal as it dove into the branches, the whiff of delicate perfume from rose apple blossoms. Our speechless rambles were only broken with peremptory whispers as my father identified the cheerful yellow amakihi swaying on a limb, the fiery red stamens of a flowering myrtle as it quivered in the breeze, or the discovered tributary of a tiny silver runnel. My time with him was spent not on discussions about my future or his past, but on total absorption of Oahu’s natural paradise. Everything else, he claimed, was secondary.

Falling in Love with Wells Cathedral

Falling in Love with Wells Cathedral

Elyn Aviva
Art and Culture, Literary Travel, Religion, Sacred Places, travel essay

by Elyn Aviva

I never thought I’d fall in love again. And certainly not with a building! Yet there I was, heart pounding, eyes damp at the sight of her.

Funny how the first few times I’d seen her, I never felt this “hit” of passionate connection. But that’s often how love strikes us, isn’t it? Not much interest at first—but then, Pow! Like a thunderbolt.

When You Wish Upon A Mound...

When You Wish Upon A Mound...

Laurie Gilberg Vander Velde
Art and Culture, Historic Travel, Off-the-beaten path destination, Personal essay, Sacred Places

by Laurie Gilberg Vander Velde

 

She was so vivacious and charismatic that I went up and introduced myself after the talk she gave.  When I told her I was from St. Louis, she immediately asked, “Have you ever been to Cahokia Mounds?”  “Well, my kids went on school trips... I’ve been meaning to go since they built the new visitor’s center...,” I muttered my reply.  “You have to go,” she urged.  “It’s one of the most wonderful, inspiring Native American sites in all of North America.  Promise me you’ll go.”  “Sure,” I said.

 

I met Judie in October 2009 when she spoke at a retreat for the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College at the lovely Tamaya Resort north of Albuquerque.  Judie and I had an instant rapport, and, when we met for lunch in Santa Fe a week or so later, she again pressed us to go to Cahokia Mounds.  Again we promised.  But life intervenes, and by the time we returned to Santa Fe the following summer and called Judie to get together, we still hadn’t gone.  

Genuine or Hoax? Visiting a Crop Circle Formation at Avebury, England

Genuine or Hoax? Visiting a Crop Circle Formation at Avebury, England

Elyn Aviva
Art and Culture, Personal essay, Sacred Places

by Elyn Aviva

The news rippled through our group like a breeze through a wheat field: a crop circle had just been spotted! According to a crop circle blog, it had appeared only two days earlier, on the side of Windmill Hill, close to Avebury, in southern England. We were told it was still fresh and relatively untrammeled. Even better news was that we were nearby, since our group was visiting sacred sites in the area—including Stonehenge, Glastonbury, and Avebury, site of the largest stone circle in the UK.

Crop formations usually occur in fields of ripe cereal grains. They appear all over the world but are most prevalent during July and August in the Wiltshire district of southern England. The complex patterns range in size from just a few feet across to over 900 feet, although the average is about 200-300 feet in diameter, and they vary in elements from a few to over 400. The designs may be circular (hence “crop circle”) or based on other geometrical forms (hence “crop formation”).

Conspiracy on Malta?

Elyn Aviva
Art and Culture, Historic Travel, Off-the-beaten path destination, Sacred Places, cultural musings, exotic travel, travel essay

by Elyn Aviva

We were on Malta, a tiny island at the crossroads of the Mediterranean, within sight on a clear day of Sicily and Mount Etna, and we were confused.

Since our first day on the island, Gary (my husband) and I had been experiencing generalized confusion. For example, we had been told that everyone spoke English—after all, Malta had been an English colony for over 150 years—but street signs were unpronounceable, and our taxi driver didn’t seem to understand a word we said. He replied to our frantic queries in something that sounded like a mixture of Arabic and Italian. And it turns out it was. Sort of. Maltese is a Semitic language, brought by Phoenician settlers 3000+ years ago, so it sounds vaguely Arabic. And because Italy has had such a pervasive influence on Malta—in part because of proximity, and in part because for decades the only television channels available were Italian—Italian words and cuisine are prevalent.

But our linguistic confusion was superficial. Much more confusing were the temples, the fat ladies, and the cart ruts. We had come to Malta to see the massive Neolithic stone temples, recognized by UNESCO as World Heritage Sites. Some of them date back 5,500 years—or maybe 10,000 or 12,000 years, depending on whom you believe. Ggantija, on Malta’s tiny neighbor island Gozo, is thought to be the second oldest temple in the world, after Göbekli Tepe in Turkey. It predates the pyramids by millennia. Some writers believe the Maltese temples are oriented to astrological alignments that existed 12,000 years ago, not 5,500—and might even have been built by extraterrestrials.

Spiritual GPS: Discovering holiness in every moment

Richard Rossner
Personal essay, Sacred Places, Spirituality

by Richard Rossner

Where can we find holiness?

Sometimes I feel like I am in a grand hide-and-seek game with the Creator.  Just when I think I’ve found the deepest of the deep, He escapes me.  Just when I’ve found the perfect light, the right sound, the special spot for a spiritual experience, a hiccup or sneeze ruins the instant.

Then again, moments in life occasionally arrange themselves to create spontaneous experiences that become life-long memories with deep teachings that touch the soul.  They sneak up on you like the first warm smell of Spring that subtly tickles your nose.  You have to stop to make sure they really happened.  To miss these moments would be to miss the juiciest slices of life.

In 1994, I had just moved from Los Angeles to Scottsdale, Arizona.  The Northridge earthquake shook up more than the foundations of my West L.A. town home.  I was shaken to my very core.  I wanted out.  I had been blinded by too much show biz (I had been a writer on a hit show), too much disappointment (I was off the hit show and didn’t bag another staff position), and I was finally tiring of too much life in and out of the Hollywood fishbowl.

In Wales, Nothing is Quite What it Seems

In Wales, Nothing is Quite What it Seems

Elyn Aviva
Historic Travel, Personal essay, Sacred Places

by Elyn Aviva

We were savoring our after-dinner espressos at Llys Meddyg, a “restaurant with rooms,” in Newport, Pembrokeshire, Wales, when my cell phone rang. I looked at it suspiciously.

During the week we had stayed at Llys Meddyg the cell phone had never functioned inside the hotel. There simply wasn’t any signal. To make a phone call, I had to walk down the street waving it in the air until gradually the bars started showing up.

The phone kept ringing. I answered it and heard a woman’s voice, speaking rapidly. “Hi, this is Winifred. I hear you’re going to write about my land. If you write about my land, you’d better get it right!”

“Hello,” I replied. “How’d you hear about us?”

“My friend David told me. When can we meet?”

The phone suddenly cut out. I ran outside the restaurant and down the street, looking for a signal. One bar, two bars, three. I tried to return the call. It rang once and Winifred answered.

“Sorry, we lost the connection.” I said.

“It’s because of all the volcanic rock in the Preselis. It interferes with cell phone transmissions.”

“So that’s why!” I exclaimed. “I wondered.”

Searching for Sunrise in a Megalithic Cemetery, Ireland

Searching for Sunrise in a Megalithic Cemetery, Ireland

Elyn Aviva
Art and Culture, Historic Travel, Sacred Places, Spirituality, Transformational Travel, travel essay

by Elyn Aviva

Cautiously, my husband Gary, our friend Michael, and I followed a nearly invisible path through the fog and up the side of Loughcrew hill, just before sunrise. A huge crow—perhaps a raven—flew by, its wings flapping loudly in semi-darkness. We were heading to the ridge top to see a twice-a-year spectacle: the rays of the equinox sunrise penetrating the passageway of Cairn T, a 5,500-year-old megalithic tomb situated 52 miles northwest of Dublin. The equinoxes, which occur around March 21 and September 21, are the two times of the year when the days and nights are of equal length.

Meeting the Buddha in Sedona

Meeting the Buddha in Sedona

Suzanne Marriott
Grief, Personal essay, Sacred Places, Spirituality

story + photos by Suzanne Marriott

My husband was lying in the hospital bed, dying. It wasn’t as if I should be surprised—he had been in and out of hospitals many times that year, suffering from complications of multiple sclerosis. Yet, I was. I was in shock.

I had been his caregiver for the last ten years, and now, at the time of his death on January 1, 2006, I couldn’t stop. I still had to take care of him. Less than a minute after he drew his last breath, I began reading a Tibetan Phowa, or prayer, to Amatabha Buddha to guide Michael’s transition. It was a long and beautiful poem that guided him as he experienced the stages of death and the many levels of transition. Amitabha is a Sanskrit word that literally means boundless light and boundless life. He is the Buddha in the Land of Ultimate Bliss (Pure Land), in which all beings enjoy unbounded happiness. He can provide a “short cut” to enlightenment. By reading this phowa, I felt still connected to Michael, still able to care for him.

Nearly six years after my husband’s death, I hardly expected to meet Amatabha Buddha again in Sedona, Arizona, and this was not the only surprising thing that happened there.

Mimi Goes to Sea in Bali

Gwen Davis
Grief, Loss, Personal essay, Sacred Places, cultural musings

by Gwen Davis 

Mimi was a Bichon Frise, a little puffy white dog of inspiring intelligence and charm. The placing of her ashes in a young coconut, and sending her to sea off Bali, where I have come to live since her shocking departure,-- it is the one place we had not traveled together since dogs were not allowed,-- had to be postponed until the day of the full moon, which is now, because when you do ceremony in Bali it has to be at an auspicious time, or the souls do not rejoice as they should.  At least, I think that’s the reason. There’s so much mystery and superstition around Bali that one cannot be quite sure. You just have to leave your heart open and see what happens. At any rate, I do.

So Mimi, whose last great earthly journey was to Bali in my suitcase, in a little flower-printed metal box from Hartsdale pet cemetery where she was cremated, got taken to the beach at Canggu, because that is where you are allowed to do your ceremonies. Yoni, my darling driver, came today bearing five little baskets woven from palm, with tiny flowers and petals in them, and we went there, pausing for her to light the incense, and scatter a few of the petals.

CHIAPAS, MEXICO: Maya, Mother Nature, and More.

CHIAPAS, MEXICO: Maya, Mother Nature, and More.

Editors
Art and Culture, Historic Travel, Off-the-beaten path destination, Sacred Places, adventure travel, cultural immersion

3 Ways to Discover Chiapas, Mexico: From a Maya immersion tour deep in the Lacondon jungle to a hacienda-hopping equestrian adventure in the Cintalapa ranchland, discover one of Mexico's most magical and least-known regions with three YourLifeIsATrip.com insiders: editor Judith Fein, photographer Paul Ross, and publisher Ellen Barone.

Facing Fear at Cave of the Cats in Western Ireland

Elyn Aviva
Historic Travel, Life Lessons, Off-the-beaten path destination, Sacred Places

by Elyn Aviva

Even photos of the Cave of the Cats gave me the willies. I wasn’t going to enter it, not if you paid me. I was sure of that. My companions could go in if they wanted, but not me. We sloshed through the wet field to the entrance, a dark inverted triangle almost hidden by an overgrown thorn bush. A gash, a hole in Mother Earth. “No way,” I muttered, shaking my head. Jack, flashlight in hand, offered to go in first, and I watched him slither into the tight-fitting slit.

County Roscommon in western Ireland has a reputation for being boring, but it is anything but. The Rathcroghan complex has been a powerful place since the Neolithic, roughly 6000 years ago. It is an enigmatic landscape shrouded in myth, the burial place of long-forgotten heroes and the kings and queens of Connacht. It is one of the legendary “Celtic Royal Sites” of Ireland, ranking with the better-known Hill of Tara. Like Tara, Rathcroghan unites legend with history. It includes over 200 sites: ancient earthworks, tumuli, ceremonial avenues, ring forts, standing stones, the remains of a Druid school, holy wells, and caves. We’d come for the caves—one in particular, the Cave of the Cats.

Oweynagat (pronounced “Oween-ne-gat” or “UUvnaGOTCH”) or the Cave of the Cats is a spooky place, filled with powerful energies both of the earth and of the Otherworld. The Morrigan, Celtic goddess of death, destruction, and passion, is said to reside within.