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Ring Lake
Ranch revealed a new and amazing side of itself to me the
last week in March. It was like discovering a lovely new side
of an old friend. Many times I'd experienced the fullness
and beauty of its summer warmth and welcome. Twice I'd known
the glories of color in the fall as the deep blue daytime
crispness dipped to cold nights. I had no idea what
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were often
cold and fierce.
That week
provoked many thoughts--how throughout all our lives we have
our summers and our winters, both of which, in balancing each
other, are important and contribute to who we are. The rhythms
of nature are our own rhythms--we are part of this larger
rhythm of the universe. In the isolation of the Ranch at this
season, it also reminded me how we all need times of withdrawing
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magic
I would find as winter began its transition to spring, and
how it would intensify my sense of the sacredness of this
special place.
In the
quiet, muted colors of winter, with everything seeming asleep
or withdrawn, an amazing amount of activity was in process.
As the week progressed a
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from our
usual activities--time to recuperate, to plant new seeds,
to rest, to lie fallow.
Just as
the environment of the Ranch needs the cycles of its existence--not
only to be available to us, but also to restore itself--it
offers us the same opportunity. We come to the Ranch
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symphony of sound and beauty was playing out. Ice fishing folks
on Torrey and Trail Lakes dismantled their tents as rumbling,
bass drum thunder tolls came from deep in the lakes. Though
we could still walk out on the ice, cracks were evident, probably
formed with sounds that split the air like rifle shot. At times
a high-pitched zinging tore from one side of the lake to the
other, and at the edge of the ice we found a little bubbling
blowhole. Over all this two bald eagles rode the thermals while
crowds of Canada geese, enjoying the half-thawed Ring Lake,
conversed all day and into the night. Mountain bluebirds, magpies,
Clark's nutcrackers and deer showed up on a regular basis. Though
I didn't see them myself, I heard the sheep were down. And,
to assure us that we were in the Wind River Mountains, the winds |
in the
summer, the effect of which can be nourishment for us in the
rest of our lives, especially in our own winter moments--those
that naturally come to all of us. Knowing the Ranch in the
variety of its seasons gives me a greater awareness of the
gifts and music available in all the seasons of our own lives--if
we have eyes to see and ears to hear them. The summer of 2000
holds the promise of wonderful seminars and speakers, old
friends with whom to reconnect, and new friends to meet. May
we who love this sacred place with all its gifts create our
own special symphony this summer in sharing this time and
place with each other as we live out the seasons of our own
lives.
~
Joan Guntzelman
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