My favorite place has no earthly boundaries or fences. It has no name attached to it. It is a place that I began building in my mind when I was just a child lost in a sea of adults.

     There are mountains with peaks covered in glittering snow that I visit when I need to see life in a larger, more complete view. Being there, gives me perspective and reminds me that no matter how impossible a situation may feel to me, it is really quite minute when I see the big picture from the top of my mountains.. Being on the top of those mountains allows me to see the beauty that is often missed when viewing life close up and sometimes too personally.

     When I need peace and serenity, I go to the forests untouched by man. Trees of ancient stature tower above me, reaching to the skies with branches outstretched in praise to the Creator. The forest floor is full of plants and flowers whose lush beauty caresses the rough edges of my soul just by their existence. Creatures of the wild abound in their natural habitat completing the circle of life as the Great Mother intended.

  When my heart is wounded, my place becomes an island surrounded by an ocean that pounds the shore in rhythm with my beating heart. The color of the water is  slate gray and is  tossed about by the winds of my emotions. Thunderstorms, loud and crackling with lightning, fill the skies above my island blocking out the messages of pain that want to bombard my already aching heart.

     The place that I visit in my world when I get out of touch with my inner self, which gets lost in the rush and clamor of my present life, is a green meadow with rolling hills. There is a calm blue lake in the center and the landscape is peppered with tall, full pines. There are old-fashioned wooden picnic tables and it is there that I sit with those of my loved ones who have moved on to a place that only they can see with the eyes of their souls. We sit at the tables worn with time, laughing and talking and enjoying being together again as we were on the earthly plane. The old ones tell of their beginnings and their many life journeys and their wisdom renews me, allowing me to once again see the path ahead more clearly.

     There are many levels to the world that I have created since childhood filled with beauty, peace and sometimes necessary isolation from a sometimes brutal world. It has provided solace in times of sorrow and pain, healing, and sometimes, joyful escape to a place that allows the child in me to be born again.