A Transcendent Journey

As I have written before, part of our ever changing challenge in life is to pay attention to intuition and synchronicities. The former gives us direction and the latter confirmation.  It is this conscious practice that makes the uncertain more certain, and allows us to live in the present, with assurances that we are on our right path. 

Years ago a good friend of mine was a passenger on the last round-the-world flight of the Concorde supersonic airplane. They went luxuriously to the great wonders of both the man-made and natural world. I asked him to reveal the greatest highlight of his journey. He responded with a resounding and resolute firmness: “ The Antarctic — by far.” 

Making a note of this I let it idle in the recesses of my mind. A few months ago while dining with friends, they were excited to tell me of their upcoming trip. As you may have guessed, it was the Antarctic. I knew, beyond a doubt, that if there was room, I needed to go. 

I contacted Scott, a close friend who had been an associate in my advertising profession.  He recently graduated from divinity school, and was a fellow seeker.  Scott immediately said, “Absolutely, I want to go.” We realized we were both answering a call. 

And now we are here, experiencing the transcendence of this great, white uninhabited continent. While we, with fellow passengers, are riding in zodiacs to penguin and seal colonies amidst a changing cascade of snow, ice, and rain there may be the occasional thunder of a calving ice shelf or the luminance of sudden sunlight to arrest us. On a sunny day, it is sheer beauty.

Plato once said that truth, beauty, and goodness were one in the same. It is difficult to know truth or goodness, but beauty arrests us and transports us to a spiritual plane, whether we consciously realize it or not. 

While here with our fellow travelers, even though there is internet and the means to stay plugged into the hurly burly world we left behind, our surroundings minimize the man-made worldly drama. It is replaced with an appreciation of the grandeur of nature. It is as if we’ve had a shot of transcendence, resulting in a lightness of being.

Perhaps the antidote to the uncertainty and chaos that our technology driven world creates, is to make time to seek the beauty and awe of nature. Go to those areas that allow you to appreciate this palette. In so doing, you will become of aware of how nature’s beauty can be a portal to personal transcendence and well-being.

Sanderson Sims, March 10 2020