The Sacred Place of Borderlands...

   Slowly, so very slowly, the landscape around my home in Maine is coming back to life.  As the sun warms and the edge of icy winter retreats, tiny signs of re-emergence can be seen.

   I've always viewed the planting of bulbs in the autumn as an act of faith...their appearance in the spring, a moment of joy especially this spring.

   We are all turning our faces to the light and basking in the warmth of a much delayed spring...it is heavenly.

   Although we've experienced this spring ritual of re-birth countless times, this year it seems even more poignant to my winter-weary soul.

   There is a magical quality to the experience of being on the edge of anything...the moment when a change is about to occur.  It could be at the moment of sunrise or sunset or, as in this photograph, the demarcation between cold death and the warmth of emerging life.  It is so clearly delineated here; you can run your finger along the edge.

   These are sublime contemplative moments, to be savored and internalized.  Living in this "in between" place, even for just a moment, is a delight.  One of my favorite edges to walk is where water touches the land...one of those sacred boundary places that Margaret Silf calls the "borderlands of being".   There is something inherently mysterious about these places at the edge.  We can glimpse two ways of being simultaneously...look in two directions at the same time.  Somehow, these borderlands feel like a holy place to me.