The Thin Place Behind the Falling (poem and prompt)

Hello, lovely humans! Thank you for continuing to share your poems and lift one another up. I look forward to catching up on all of the excitement in the comments thread soon. For now, I’m still in Oregon, writing, researching, and spending time in absurdly beautiful places. My poem for today was inspired by a hike with one of my sisters in Silver Falls State Park. The trail we were on took us behind several waterfalls, as you can see in the pic below.

The Thin Place Behind the Falling

Heaven and earth are only three feet apart,
just enough room for me to tuck between,

to press my back into shining basalt and 
let the veil dampen my face. 

I stand between a rock and
the hard pelting of everything

emptying toward a single sea.
My body joins the roaring.

It shakes with laughter.
It giggles a prayer.  

Prompt

There is a Celtic saying that “heaven and earth are only three feet apart, but in thin places, that distance is even shorter.” In an article for The New York Times, Eric Weiner describes thin places as “locales where the distance between heaven and earth collapses and we’re able to catch glimpses of the divine, or the transcendent or, as I like to think of it, the Infinite Whatever.” My own sense—though I can’t tell you whether this jives with Celtic philosophy—is that thin places don’t necessarily have to be geographic in nature. In my life, they also appear as relational spaces and psychological spaces, like a divine spark kindled between two people, or between a person and a non-human being, or even between the many parts of self.

What places or contexts in your life feel thin—feel like they allow you easier access to the divine or to the wisest, most loving parts of yourself or to the fire and flow of your creativity?

If you’d like to play with a prompt, then I invite you to try to spend a few moments in a place that feels thin to you (it can be geographic, relational, psychological, etc). Or simply reflect on a memory of a place that felt thin. Or sit with the concept of thin places; allow yourself to wonder about it. Notice what opinions you already hold, what emotions they tap into, and how those opinions and emotions were first formed. Let any and all of this feed your next poem. I look forward to reading whatever you share!