Sacred is one of my most favorite words.  It means set apart from ordinary, something so pure, it must never be violated.  It originally meant to make holy.   

When something is sacred, you respect it, it’s special, you dedicate yourself to making sure it stays pure.

Many things are sacred to me.

A walk in the forest is sacred, the smell of the trees, whether pine, oak, eucalyptus or redwood, the light filtering through, the silence.  Redwoods are the most sacred to me.  They form a cathedral.

The symphony of birdsong that starts between dawn and sunrise.

Listening is sacred.

That realm of communication that supersedes logic and achieves communion.

Greetings.  My cats taught me a lot about this.  Greetings are sacred to cats, which is why many of them can seem aloof if they’re not greeted properly.  I just returned from a trip to Denver and the greeting with my three cats when I returned took a long time and was profoundly fulfilling.  The same is true for me with people, that moment where we say, “Hello,” even in a moment, is sacred.

Friendship is sacred.  A sanctum is a holy place, a private retreat.  Good friendship creates a sanctum, and my best friends are the ones who enter my inner sanctum.

Friday nights.  I work hard all week, Friday nights are sacred.  Saturday mornings.  Sunday dinner, the last beautiful moments of the weekend.

Doing nothing is sacred.  Spending hours just being.  Enjoying where I am.

Others.  I see in others a sacred quality.  I see who they really are and their goodness.  I see so many people transform in my work, that I’m no longer fooled by superficial reactions that make them appear arrogant or stupid or nasty.  I know there is an incredible being in each one of us.

All the beautiful churches, temples, mosques I have been in around the world, Catholic, Protestant, Hindu, Muslim, Russian Orthodox.  Unforgettable Native American sweat lodges under dark starry skies on the shores of a remote island in the Canadian wilderness.

Mankind’s sacred attempt to reach the holy. The sight of others praying, their earnestness in reaching out, their faith.

The sound of the ocean crashing on the shore.

Rain on the roof.

A good laugh.

My inner voice.  Your inner voice.

An incredible conversation that nourishes our life force.  Especially if there is a walk, sunset or cup of tea involved.

Sharing secrets.

Other people’s beliefs, other people’s right to decide what is right for them.

Helping.

Thomas Jefferson‘s writings, George Washington’s letters, especially the one to his wife.

Much literature, including Jerome K Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat, published in 1889, that I listen to on CD driving when I want to laugh until my stomach hurts.

Louis Alan Swartz’s poetry, especially the poems on immortality and love.

Art, especially Diane Woods’s creations.

Virtually all of Shakespeare.

Music.

Sunrise.  Sunset.  The colors in the sky right before and after.

The butterflies, bees, hummingbirds, deer, and raccoon who visit my garden.

Life.  Being alive.  Each moment of my life.

The deeply personal journey each one of us is on, discovering our spirituality.

Love.  In ALL its miraculous forms. Possibly the most sacred thing for me is love.

May you have much of it!

And – please feel free to share what is sacred to you!  I am sure you have much that is.

Love,

Ingrid

Humankind has been communicating since our beginning.  And we invented and used words long before we ever wrote them down.

As human beings began to evolve a vocabulary to express their thoughts, they also began to travel, and many traveled far.  As they went into new territories, with them they brought new words and, once there, they also discovered and started using countless new ones.  So, words made many journeys as well.

And as they traveled, words changed their meanings.  And as thousands of years moved forward and new generations used them, words changed their meanings yet more times.

It can be very surprising to open a dictionary and discover a word has many definitions.  And even more surprising to discover all the definitions it has had in the past.

To study a word is to study humankind.  It’s to glimpse generations of humanity explore, share, borrow and endlessly communicate rich concepts across wide spans of time and geography.

Hefty dictionaries lend themselves to this deep exploration.  They do justice to the robust, complex concepts words embody.

Recently I was doing a deep dive into words and fell in love with one I’ve known a long time, but never fully appreciated.  Surprisingly, this word is aggressive.

In Latin it meant simply to take a step toward something, to approach it.  That is all it meant back then.  Simply, to approach, to come nearer.

Aggressive experienced a metamorphosis as this word crossed oceans and centuries.

We find it in the 1961 Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (estimated weight 15 pounds) as bold determination, enterprising.

Enterprising is a word I’ve heard often, but I never use it and so decided to explore its essence.

I fell head over heels in love with the meaning:  characterized by a bold daring energetic spirit or by independence or originality of thought.

All that in one word!  I love the person who deserves this word!!!!!

Enterprising is still considered good.  However, some of these bold and daring aggressive folks plainly used too much force and upset others, because aggressive has come to mean hostile and offensive, which is what it often means today.  Clearly not desirable qualities or actions.

Although not often used this way, aggressive can also simply mean courageous, unrestrained energy, determination and initiative to boldly and causatively step forth and make something happen.  Beautiful.

I love reading the old dictionaries for I find a sense of romance and adventure that is lost in modern ones.

Wishing you beautiful enterprising moments of bold daring in your own life, moments you feel fully alive!

Love,

Ingrid