Beautiful Offerrings

I woke when it was still dark and began the drive North on Highway 89 into Grand Teton National Park. With the majestic Tetons on my left and my dad alongside me on my right, the dawn light presented herself in the sky. We turned off the main road and began the descent to Schwabacher Landing. I lived in Jackson for 13 years and not once when I was there, had I been to the ponds below the Tetons. I was called to sit in front of the Tetons and that is the space that arose for me to go. It felt and feels fitting to be in a space that I had known, been so close to and had not experienced for my final morning. 

Within moments of our descent, lightening lit up the sky. Then thunder. We parked the car and the rain came. A soft rain that quickly turned hard and cold. I chuckled with this.  As I entered the Tetons a few days earlier, it began to rain. Rain, I was told, for the first time in two months. Now, on this final morning, more rain.

I can be in the rain. I can be with the rain.  I found a spot near water to sit.  Me, the Tetons, the rain. Me, the Tetons, the rain. Humbled. In awe. Sitting at the base of the Tetons, watching the droplets of rain enter the Snake River, feeling the rain hit my skin.

I was there.

Present.

In the moment.

Stillness.

Presence.

Peace.

And then I heard a hum, a hum that grew louder and louder like a rumble. I maintained my awareness inward, on my breath and the sensations my body was experiencing being in the rain as thoughts about the sound arose, and silently told myself, “this is all happening for you…” Rather than the thought that likes to arise sometimes, “this is all happening to you.”

I stood, walked and stepped into the Snake River. Grateful for the moments to sit beside her, under the Tetons. Grateful to receive. Grateful for the rain. I saw it as a cleanse, a purifying, a washing away.

When the moment ends, as it always does, I gathered my things and began to walk.  Laughter, uncontrollable laughter, from deep within burst out when I saw this:

The sound that I heard was coming from a truck that was cleaning out the pit toilet!

I laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed. There it was, in front of me, to see, to witness the truck sucking up the shit, the waste, what is no longer needed from the pit toilet.

Even now, typing this… AMAZING.  aMAzing. aMAzing.  Such a play of life.  What a beautiful offering.

As my Dad and I made our way to the car, this is what we saw:

Deep reverence to this mystical, magical, majestic, marvelous life,

Sara