Have you ever experienced the numinous?

The Purkinje Shift works at both dawn and twilight... it is an extraordinary sensation, also known as Alpen Glow. I'm glad you got the experience. Do you still backpack? I love backpacking (so why don't I like portaging???).

I was ten years younger and thirty pounds lighter on the <saddness> last trip.

OK, so, drop the weight and fill that backpack my man. Even if you only take those short 5 mile trips. Don't you miss it??? We've got some great 2 milers around here, too. You don't have to go far to get away from the madding crowds.

All sorts of lighter gear available, though I suppose you have to carry a lot of water in NM? That would be tough.

My sister lives in NM, and i stayed there for a while, in the Sangre de Christo mountains. There was water everywhere, in the forms of small, dangerous streams and rivers. If you carried Halizone tablets, you might be o.k. in the Jemez, Sangre de Christo or the Frijoli (sp?) mountains in the north. The south of the state is another story altogether . . .

Once, sitting at a picnic table at Mom's diner (". . . hey darlin', who's is this placed named for?" "Whatchu mean, i doan unnerstan . . . my mom . . .") outside of Chimayo, i was approached by a woman in levis, chambray shirt, leather chaps and an old beat-up straw hat, followed by a saddle horse, three pack horses and four very happy dogs. She asked if she could smoke "one a them tailor-mades" when she saw i was smoking a non-filter cigarette. Out of courtesy, she offered me some of her home-grown tobacco and some papers. Out of courtesy, i accepted, rolled a big fatty, and narrowly avoided choking to death. The pack horses were carryin' about a six- or seven-months supply of oats and dog food. She came in from the Frijoli mountains about two or three times a year to buy what she couldn't grow or kill in the mountains. She was about thirty, face like old leather, and very wiry. Never laid eyes on her again, she just mounted up and rode off the road and up the draw into the noon-time glare . . .

What a story! I believe it, too... if things woulda been different, that might have been me! I'll bet those were happy dogs!!!

Chimayo? I like that bitsy place, have a nice set of milagros from the store and I still have my film cannister of holy dirt with a couple of milagros in that as well.

Dangerous streams? As in beaver fever? We use a pump with a microscopic filter... seems to work OK. Only had Giardia once in the family (not me, Mr.PFK) after years and years of camping, and that was after a day trip, apparently from washing hands in stream.

No, darlin', dangerous as in sudden, lethal flash-flood, literally beneath a clear, blue sky . . . it can be pouring rain in a part of the mountains which you cannot see, and in full, bright sunlight, a wall of water can suddenly rush down an arroyo . . . it kills people in the southwest every year . . .

Canoeing with a friend on a special 40th birthday women's weekend in Northern Ontario. We got up before the rest of the group and headed out into the middle of the lake to watch the sunrise. It was great, but it got better. Just after sunrise, we sort of paddled, drifted over toward the reeds. Saw a loon just waking up, stretching up toward the sun and then he called out his greeting to the day. It was an extraordinary peaceful and energizing and all-at-one-with-oneness moment. My friend and I didn't talk all the way back to the camp. It was like we were totally in synch with each other and the world.

I've had this experience usually at night on the shore of Lake Michigan near where I live. I have romantically thought of it as being a sense of oneness with nature. I do not have an explanation for the feeling, but it was good. It's one of those experiences that is open to any one of several explanations.

Ooh, I thought of a couple more... (all alone... I wonder if that means anything?)

1.) Sitting on a log in the middle of frozen Lake Mendota, at night, pitch black but for stars and the vague glow coming off the snow-covered ice. I was writing a story and the housing co-op in which I lived was too distracting, so I walked out there. (Was right on the lake.)

2.) Running before dawn in Minneapolis, coming over a hill, and seeing Northern Lights. Utterly unexpected, utterly magical.

Lovely thread!

Hmmmmmmm - many very early mornings - that wonderful morning scent - the sun thinking of rising - riding, walking, camping - 'tis an ecstatic feeling - like a mental or spiritual orgasm, I guess - the Australian "bush" does it to me - and the sea....

When the Hasidim meditate on a glowing flame, they frequently experience an epiphany with God.

Yikes, Setanta, I didn't realize. However, I think I'd hear it... least that's what the ol' cowpokes told me when I used to ride in the hills around Rio Verde. There is a loud noise... must immediately get to high ground.

Beth -- Isn't it great? Those feelings stay with you so much longer than most of our other experiences. Least that's what I think. And we remember not just our feelings but colors, smells, sounds. If our souls can glow, I think that's what they're doing.

Hazlitt -- I think you're right... many explanations but none for certain. That's what makes it so grand. It is good to not know everything and be held in a state of happy suspense. At least, it seems so to me. It is not a feeling to dread, but one to welcome.

Deb -- I think that a lot of people assume if they went to Australia, they'd feel it, the numinous. It is that which draws so many people there, or makes them say, "I dunno, I've just always wanted to go to OZ." Lucky, lucky you to be there and have it at your doorstep! The Daoists believe it is much easier to achieve Dao when you are in a physical state of sublime beauty... what they're now translating as the numinous.

Sozobe -- Your description of Lake Mendota sends chills down my back. Starry nights are so cool. I've never seen enough of the Northern Lights to write home about... guess I'll have to go further north again someday.

I don't know if you have to be alone to experience the numinous, but I do think you have to be in a very quiet situation. No need to speak, no rumble of traffic or street noises. Maybe that's why all those Benedictine monks take vows of silence?

New Haven -- I don't know much about the Hasidim, but I know that candle light and fire light can be mesmerizing. That alone may be enough to give them the feeling.

My thought right now is that the numinous may be around all the time, but we can't always feel it. Maybe we need a quiet jolt to our senses, like giving ourselves a soft visual focus, being intent on nature, or being very quiet in order to experience it.

Hmmmm Piffka - there is certainly a sense of presence and otherness in the bush - and many Aboriginal sacred sites have a power I canot explain - but even we white folks can feel - but, I don't think you can beat gazing into the starry heart of the universe at night (if you can still see it - this is why the country at night is so great) - especially since you are gazing back in time almost to the very birth of the universe......

Breath-taking, that's what it is. I've always said I would like to go to Australia so that I could see the southern constellations. That would be fabulous. Did you notice a huge difference when you came to our side of the hemisphere?

Should point out that there is a Hubble photograph called the Birth of Stars... know it? Always provides a bit of the numinous to me.

The numinous what?

Piffka - I did not see too many stars - not from New York and Washington - and Quebec was too cloudy. I would love to have seen them, though. I must get away from lighted cities next time...

Deb - Please come to our part of the world sometime. We'll find you some good stars, even if we have to take you to Eastern WA.
(Does that look funny to you, eastern Western Australia?)

Your speaking of the aboriginal sites makes me want to come to AU and feel that for myself. How regretful the aborigines must be of all they've lost.

Steve -- That's funny. I think it sounds like an adjective too, but it is now a noun as well. I looked it up in the OED Compact (First. Ed, 21st Printing) which does not include the Otto definition. This is what it says, just in case you've lost the magnifying glass that comes with the set.

It is a short entry, under Numinal, an adjective, obs. & rare (extant representative) from the Latin numin + AL meaning divine.

Feltham Low Countries "Their wisdom is not indeed heroic or numinal, ... but rather narrow and restrictive."

numinous is then described as an adj. or adv. used in 1647 by WARD in Simp. Cobler 66 "The Will of a King is very numinous; it hath a kinde of vast universality about it."

In 1650, B. Discollim, "They shall prove such Jupiters as to fall a thundring and lightning so numinously over our heads."

It is now used as a noun, maybe because of the deity-like object that such an adjective implies... you know, you're not supposed to know the name of god.