World Class Hugs

By Rachel Puryear

The world is full of beautiful and grand churches, temples, and other houses of worship.

However, personally, there’s no places that inspire me spiritually quite like nature’s cathedrals.

That is, the kind of natural outdoor spaces that stun, captivate, and humble one with their otherworldly, moving beauty.

Such as snow-capped mountain landscapes.

Haunting desert vistas.

Beautiful beaches and oceans.

Lush tropical rainforests.

Amazing aurora borealis in the skies.

Stunning waterfalls.

The awe-inspiring Milky Way night sky.

Brilliantly colorful coral reefs.

Gorgeous glaciers.

My Own Experience:

Years ago, I visited Death Valley National Park, in California’s Mojave desert region. There’s a place called Badwater Basin, where you can view the salt flats up close, and even go out onto them. There’s a wooden deck that goes out a bit over the flats, and then leads directly onto the flats.

Once you’re out on the flats, and get about 5-10 minutes away from the deck, it’s quieter out there than most people ever experience in day-to-day life. Everything else starts to feel far away. It’s salt flats for as far as the eye can see, and they seem to go on forever.

Being out there in the hauntingly beautiful desert, in a rare kind of silence and stillness, was an unexpectedly spiritual experience. As though there was the presence of something greater, and awesome – and I was suddenly much closer to, and aware of it.

There was a sense that there’s more to the world than we typically see day-to-day. The best way I can describe it was as though I was suddenly close to a border between one world and another.

Note: See here for accessibility information about this location.

Many people find inspiration and a sense of connection to something greater than themselves, out in nature’s cathedrals. Certainly more so than listening to rants from authoritarian preachers about fire and brimstone.

It’s no wonder many spiritual leaders of the past have found their greatest inspiration in the quietest, and most still places with natural beauty that can bring one to their knees.

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Check out my other blog, too – Free Range Life, at https://freerangelife.net. It’s about road trips to the outdoors, traveling while fat, wealth and economic philosophy, remote/passive income streams, and van/RV life.

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