Thin places
19/03/25 03:31
If you walked out of the front door of my childhood home at 500 McLeod Street in Big Timber, Montana, and turned left toward downtown, you would be looking directly at the Crazy Mountains. Big Timber is laid out in reference to the railroad tracks that pass through town and not the compass. Main Street runs from northwest to southeast. The peaks of the mountains are about 25 miles from town and rise nearly 7,000 feet above the town's elevation. The Crazies are an isolated island range east of the Continental Divide. The view is stunning. Even though that view was an everyday vista while growing up, I am still struck by it whenever I return. It is not something that one gets used to.
The mountains are sacred to the Apsáalooke Nation, also known as the Crow Tribe. The tribe was forced to cede the mountains and the area around them in the face of waves of settlers that followed 19th-century gold rushes. The Apsáalooke word for the mountains is Awaxaawippíia’, which might be translated as “Ominous Mountains.” The language is elusive to English speakers. Not only are many words, such as the name of the mountains nearly impossible for native English speakers to pronounce correctly, their meanings frequently defy simple translation. Translating Awaxaawippíia’ as “crazy” misses the spiritual nature of the mountains. The mountains were a place of vision quests. Young men climbed to the high places to fast and pray. It is said that the famous warrior and diplomat, Plenty Coups fasted near the peak of the highest mountain in the range and there had a vision of the disappearance of buffalo, and white people filling the plains beneath the mountains. This vision shaped his leadership of the people. He wanted the people and their spiritual traditions to carry on. He felt that cooperation would benefit his people more than violent opposition. He argued for education for children and worked for peace for his people in the face of the dramatic changes that settlement brought.
My family were latecomers to the town at the base of the Crazies. My folks settled there after World War II. The Crow Reservation had been reduced, and Crow Agency was a two-hour drive east of town. Sacred places, however, have power that is beyond a single culture or period of history. The Celts use the term “thin places” to refer to sacred locations. There are places where people feel a strong connection to something beyond the ordinary in these places. The concept of thin places reaches beyond physical locations and refers to moments and experiences. Still, it never excludes the physical realities of sacred sites, areas of natural beauty, and places associated with ancient rituals.
My Christian heritage is filled with stories of high places sacred to our people. Moses went to the mountain to confer with God, and the Ten Commandments were received on the mountain. Jesus also prayed on a mountain.
The spiritual power of the Crazy Mountains reaches beyond the stories of the Apsáalooke. Although I moved away from those mountains at 17, they have shaped my vision of the world and my attitude toward the sacred nature of creation.
In 2006, we were awarded a generous grant to support a sabbatical and invested three months in the study of sacred places. We were living in the Black Hills of South Dakota in those days and were deeply aware of the sacred nature of the hills to the Lakota People. We listened to elders tell the Lakota creation story, in which people emerged from Wind Cave to populate the land above the surface. I began the sabbatical by climbing to the top of Black Elk Peak, the highest point in the hills and the highest point in the United States, west of the Rocky Mountains. I also walked to the top of Bear Butte, Paha Mato. We camped at the base of Paha Tipi, also known as Devil’s Tower, and walked around the monolith. Our sabbatical took us to other sacred places, including the ice fields of the Columbia Glacier and the high lakes above Jasper in the Canadian Rockies. We traveled to Australia, viewed Uluru, and walked around its base.
I have now arrived at a new place in my life. We now live close to the shore of the Salish Sea. We can look across the water at the San Juan Islands and beyond them to Vancouver Island. This is my first time living year-round next to an ocean, and there is much that I have learned and much that I have yet to learn. I have not, however, left the mountains. On the short drive to our son’s farm, we can see Koma Kushan, also known as Mount Baker. The nearly 11,000-foot active stratovolcano is covered in snow year-round. It is similar in height to Crazy Peak in the heart of the mountains of my youth, but because the surrounding territory is a lower elevation, the rise of the mountain is even more dramatic. I do not know the indigenous history of the mountain, but I know it is a thin place. It is a place of deep spiritual meaning and shapes the people living near it.
There is something powerful about looking at a snow-capped mountain from the bay's surface. There is a place where I ride my bike from which the mountain can be viewed across a harbor, its height and majesty reflected in the smooth water as it is backlit at sunrise. The mountain is inviting, and in the summer, we take our grandchildren up above the snow line at 5,000 feet to play in the snow and stop at a place of old-growth forest on our way.
I am grateful for the many sacred places I have been privileged to visit and for the years I have been able to live near thin places. I know that the places of my life have shaped my personality and spirituality. May I never take them for granted?
The mountains are sacred to the Apsáalooke Nation, also known as the Crow Tribe. The tribe was forced to cede the mountains and the area around them in the face of waves of settlers that followed 19th-century gold rushes. The Apsáalooke word for the mountains is Awaxaawippíia’, which might be translated as “Ominous Mountains.” The language is elusive to English speakers. Not only are many words, such as the name of the mountains nearly impossible for native English speakers to pronounce correctly, their meanings frequently defy simple translation. Translating Awaxaawippíia’ as “crazy” misses the spiritual nature of the mountains. The mountains were a place of vision quests. Young men climbed to the high places to fast and pray. It is said that the famous warrior and diplomat, Plenty Coups fasted near the peak of the highest mountain in the range and there had a vision of the disappearance of buffalo, and white people filling the plains beneath the mountains. This vision shaped his leadership of the people. He wanted the people and their spiritual traditions to carry on. He felt that cooperation would benefit his people more than violent opposition. He argued for education for children and worked for peace for his people in the face of the dramatic changes that settlement brought.
My family were latecomers to the town at the base of the Crazies. My folks settled there after World War II. The Crow Reservation had been reduced, and Crow Agency was a two-hour drive east of town. Sacred places, however, have power that is beyond a single culture or period of history. The Celts use the term “thin places” to refer to sacred locations. There are places where people feel a strong connection to something beyond the ordinary in these places. The concept of thin places reaches beyond physical locations and refers to moments and experiences. Still, it never excludes the physical realities of sacred sites, areas of natural beauty, and places associated with ancient rituals.
My Christian heritage is filled with stories of high places sacred to our people. Moses went to the mountain to confer with God, and the Ten Commandments were received on the mountain. Jesus also prayed on a mountain.
The spiritual power of the Crazy Mountains reaches beyond the stories of the Apsáalooke. Although I moved away from those mountains at 17, they have shaped my vision of the world and my attitude toward the sacred nature of creation.
In 2006, we were awarded a generous grant to support a sabbatical and invested three months in the study of sacred places. We were living in the Black Hills of South Dakota in those days and were deeply aware of the sacred nature of the hills to the Lakota People. We listened to elders tell the Lakota creation story, in which people emerged from Wind Cave to populate the land above the surface. I began the sabbatical by climbing to the top of Black Elk Peak, the highest point in the hills and the highest point in the United States, west of the Rocky Mountains. I also walked to the top of Bear Butte, Paha Mato. We camped at the base of Paha Tipi, also known as Devil’s Tower, and walked around the monolith. Our sabbatical took us to other sacred places, including the ice fields of the Columbia Glacier and the high lakes above Jasper in the Canadian Rockies. We traveled to Australia, viewed Uluru, and walked around its base.
I have now arrived at a new place in my life. We now live close to the shore of the Salish Sea. We can look across the water at the San Juan Islands and beyond them to Vancouver Island. This is my first time living year-round next to an ocean, and there is much that I have learned and much that I have yet to learn. I have not, however, left the mountains. On the short drive to our son’s farm, we can see Koma Kushan, also known as Mount Baker. The nearly 11,000-foot active stratovolcano is covered in snow year-round. It is similar in height to Crazy Peak in the heart of the mountains of my youth, but because the surrounding territory is a lower elevation, the rise of the mountain is even more dramatic. I do not know the indigenous history of the mountain, but I know it is a thin place. It is a place of deep spiritual meaning and shapes the people living near it.
There is something powerful about looking at a snow-capped mountain from the bay's surface. There is a place where I ride my bike from which the mountain can be viewed across a harbor, its height and majesty reflected in the smooth water as it is backlit at sunrise. The mountain is inviting, and in the summer, we take our grandchildren up above the snow line at 5,000 feet to play in the snow and stop at a place of old-growth forest on our way.
I am grateful for the many sacred places I have been privileged to visit and for the years I have been able to live near thin places. I know that the places of my life have shaped my personality and spirituality. May I never take them for granted?
