There are several moments I can think of when I felt completely at peace; everything was right with the world:

When Jared was born and we shared those intimate moments as mother and child-he sleeping sweetly in my arms and when he woke, smiling into his beautiful blue eyes. And Alex, his foot sticking out beneath my ribs in utero or our old cat, Mordecai, purring and curled up on my protruding belly,

Singing hymns in church and experiencing God in the most human way during communion,

in the early morning at camp, feeding horses, out on a pack trip in the mountains for days, away from everything, around a campfire singing and playing guitar and eating s’mores of course,

hunting elk up on Mt. Evans surrounded by the vastness of twinkling stars, the mountain peaks bathed in moonlight or all but covered in a sea of clouds,

at home in the night when we settle into each other’s arms,

in the morning when I run and pray,

standing by my sister’s grave with my brothers and sisters as we gave her into rest,

grooming my horse, farming with the disc or whatever implement to cross the fields for long hours,

and, when I’m captured in my own writing, unable to stop or come back to Earth.