I know of no better way to begin the final blog from Holden than to begin it with a photograph of a cairn, a pile of stones serving as a marker for the way along the path of some former wanderer. I recently passed this small cairn put together from existing rocks on a small hill on my way to the labyrinth.
I leave it there for others to pass on their way to wherever it is they are going. If it topples, there will be others who will put it together again. There is always a cairn in this place to mark the way we have taken...this particular way, anyway.
After two years in this wilderness setting, I am leaving. My parting gift to you will be a few more (one can never get enough) glimpses of the world in which I have lived, a world at the moment transformed by sunshine and made verdant by rain...a world transformed by the urgency of making the most of the long days of summer.
The very first rays of the sun illuminate the very top of Buckskin.
The short and exotic season of trillium.
The center stone at the labyrinth.
A patch of lupin along the road to the lake.
A newborn fawn in one of Holden's flower beds.
The canopy over the road to the lake.
"Johnny-jump-ups" along the path at the labyrinth.
Ten-mile Falls.
Cloud bank over Copper Mountain.
I will, in some form or fashion, in some new way as yet unknown to me, continue on with "Whatever from Wherever." I hope that you will continue on my journey with me.
I will leave you for the moment with the words of "The Holden Prayer." This prayer is for all of you as well.
"O God, you have called your servants
to ventures
of which we cannot see the ending,
by paths as yet untrodden,
through perils unknown.
Give us faith
to go out with good courage,
not knowing where we go,
but only that your hand is leading us
and your love supporting us;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen
