A Dozen Sublime Experiences
Being among the first 100 same sex couples to marry legally in the U.S. in 2004 in a garden on Cape Cod. Provincetown, MA is itself a holy city for gays and lesbians.
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Watching Apollo rise over Delphi. Two visits to this sacred place. Temple of Apollo and Olive tree.
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Twice on the peak of Mauna Kea of the Big Island of Hawaii. Standing at nearly 14,000 feet, we watched the shadow of Mauna Kea move over the clouds below as the sun set. We could also see the entire island itself as well as the observatories. This holy place of native Hawaiians is one of the most spectacular places we have ever experienced.
The day in Nara, first entering the Buddhist Temple and seeing the largest, indoor bronze Buddha on Earth ( five monks can stand in the outstretched hand in this photo I took), then walking past deer and monks to the Shinto Shrine of 3000 lanterns was a transcendent encounter with Japan. The deer park, the tame deer, the various monks, the chanting, the children making their way through the passage as wide as the Buddha's nostril all made a holistic day of inspiration and joy.
The Perito Moreno Glacier in Patagonia, Argentina is an icy blue wonder to behold, vast, massive, explored by adventurers braving the snow covering the ice. We approached the glacier by walkways and boat going right up to the tall spires of ice rising from the sea. The area is near the straight of Magellan. I took the photograph of the calving of the glacier, loud and cracking, with ice falling into the water.
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Henlopen State Park, Delaware.
Sometimes the sublime is not in a grand space like the Grand Canyon (Which I've visited four times), but in a state park that encompasses you in nature's riches. Darryl, Wolfgang and I rode over 26 miles from our B&B in Lewis and Savannah Beach through the vast state park on the Atlantic Ocean, filled with deer, sea birds, and a host of other flora and fauna. The bike ride on separate bike trails was exhilarating. It was another Pantheist's dream.
The Pantheon.
My first experience of the Pantheon was in the summer of 1970 when I spent a day seeing what I thought were the most important places in Rome. I knew so little then, nothing about Hadrian, no preparation for the one overwhelming building from the ancient cultures of Greece and Italy that was completely intact. When I returned in 2005 with Darryl, we walked there from the Vatican where the rest of our group was.
As on the first time in 1970, I was filled with admiration and awe at the dome, the oculus, the moving sunlight on the walls, now with a knowledge of Hadrian and his lover Antinous, knowledge of Hadrian's love for all things Greek. To be in the Pantheon is to exist in another time and space. The sense of this temple to all gods is sublime.
Mount Rainier.
Darryl and I took my mother to Mt. Rainier in the early 1990s. She loved it there, hiked with us to the Redwood and Cedar forest, and hugged a giant tree there.
When Darryl and I joined Wolfgang and Sebastian there mid-summer, it was perfect for hiking, taking in the trees, and even hiking snow covered trails in 80 degree heat, a curious experience. It is necessary, to appreciate Rainier, to walk there, to see the surrounding mountains, to enjoy the fresh air and ambiance of such a magnificent place. The link above of our stay there has many such photographs as well as views of nearby Seattle.
Kangaroo in New South Wales,
Australia.
Coming across a tribe of wild kangaroos on a beach on the coast of Australia was nothing short of a sublime experience for the Killian brothers and myself in 1991.
We offered the Roo here in my photograph some of our loaf of bread. She happily accepted the gift, then took the bread to her companions on the beach and shared with them. Nature can be kind and loving, not just brutal and competitive.
Tilton Hall where I defended my Doctoral dissertation before the entire Philosophy Faculty of Tulane University, explaining the importance of art, the meaning of archetypes, to Ph.D s from the finest institutions in the world, including Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, and Yale. I passed the defense handily, even as I was called a "Cocky young man" by one of my new peers. I was awarded a Ph.D. that day and treated to lunch at Commander's Palace. Sublime.
Hagia Sophia: our destination in Istanbul on the Mediterranean Cruise of 2005.
The Church which became a Mosque, which became a museum for the time we were there, is magnificent. But the whole trip and cruise had many sublime moments. We went from Sitges and Barcelona to Ibiza where we swam in the sea, to Italy where we toured Tuscany, to Istanbul, to Greece where we swam naked on Mykonos and revisited Santorini.
The link here explores the sublime in religion and its manifestations.
Is there a Sublime Beach? Hapuna Beach on the Big Island, perhaps. There are so many wonderful beaches we have enjoyed. A few are located here: Hawaii: Three Islands
Darryl on Hapuna Beach
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