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Written by Kathy Platt
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Friday, 16 July 2010 11:38 |
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Today is Friday - one week ago today we were hiking up a trail called the Ptarmigan Cirque in the Peter Lougheed Park at Kananaskis. I bathed my toes in the beautiful, clear, icy waters of a mountain stream and could not believe how blessed I felt to be able to be in that holiest of places. Saturday we hiked into Chester Lake and the picture I have of that place is Janet forging her own path on a hill of stones - finding her way safely across where, for those of us watching her from across the lake, there was no evident path. On Sunday we began our hike into Three Isle Lake - a hike that pushed all of us far beyond our comfort zone. It was exhausting and terrifying and exhiliarating, all at the same time! At one point, just before we literally hit the wall where we had to climb straight up, we looked back across the valley which we had just climbed our way through, and saw the most incredible rainbow. It arched from one side of the valley clear across to the other - and as we watched it became a double rainbow. The colors and the beauty of that rainbow gave each one of us the strength we needed to keep on climbing. After we rested for all of Monday (except for Daniel who re-gained his energy by doing a flying trip back down the mountain to get food and then back up to us again!) we began the trek back down the mountain on Tuesday. We woke up to snow - sang Christmas carols in fact. Luckily we all had toques and mits and most of us wore every layer of clothing we had brought - we all made it down safely in one piece, heart and soul changed forever by the beauty and strength and challenge and blessing of that climb. I know that I will be continuing for quite some time to process all that I experienced and learned over this past week. What I do know is that we began as a collective of individuals and we clearly ended our journey as a community, bound together heart and soul. The integrity with which each person spoke of their own personal experience deeply touched my heart, and I am so looking forward to this next year as we find ways to draw the circle wide - to enable the rest of our Sunset community to come on the journey as we speak about where we found the Holy on this trek up and down the mountain.
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Located in Regina, SK.
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