My dear friend,
How are you? I hope this letter finds you well. Me? I’m getting ready to take a week of vacation and I’m excited and very busy getting everything together.
But there is one thing I don’t have to pack for or prepare for…and that is the fact that I’m heading back to one of my “thin places”.
Have you heard the term “thin place”? I had read about it a time or two but I was connecting with it until a trip I took to Donegal, Ireland. There in the northwest of Ireland I encounter a feeling (much more deep than a sensation) that even now I struggle to describe.
When I stood, walked, or breathed in a thin place I felt an energy field that was…hmmm…nostril-opening? I mean that it was invigorating for my soul! It enveloped me and left me in a state of wonderment.
So what was it that I experienced? What is a thin place?
I’ve been told that a thin place is a location where the space or distance between heaven and earth is “thin” and that I and others can feel heaven on earth.
This is an interesting concept as one has to first believe in heaven to use this definition. I haven’t quite ruled heaven out. I’m open to a concept of heaven and, thus, this definition of “thin places” will work for me kinda understanding them for now.
Is Donegal, Ireland, the only think place I’ve encountered? Oh no. The Shetland islands as a whole felt very “thin” to me–in particular the island of Unst. In my youth, I was in Fatima, Portugal, and the whole plaza dedicated to that shrine felt was charged with an energy I was not prepared for. I also propose that the Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan is a “thin” place too. But my favorite would be Rochester, NY. My first adult visit to Rochester in 1997 began with a surreal moment of feeling “hugged” as I drove in…like I was being welcomed home.
So my vacation? I’m off to Brasstown, North Carolina, a location seeped in creative expression and beauty. I will lay my head there for six nights and play with creativity and hope for a renewal of my spirit.
So now I wish that for you, that your spirit be refreshed in a place you feel is “thin” and you are closer to that which feels like heaven.
Until we meet again, please take good care of yourself.
Joyfully,
Tivesse
13