Shrine in Crestone by Lori

Greetings to those at My Human Revolution, Jennie asked me to do a guest post, normally I’m over at my other home, so here goes, thank you so much for reading!

The winter after my step father died was sort of hard, I was working a lot of hours, my mom was working as many as I was, and it was very cold in the San Luis Valley where I was living at the time.

I had a dog, a border collie named Suzie, who needed a dog house. My dad had been known for having a boat load of “crap” one of those I vastly remember was a dog house, so I grab my step brother Marvin, and head 45 miles away to get said dog house, on the way there we got to talking about his time in prison, and how he had found Buddhism and how it had changed his life.

I had heard years before about a shrine, in Crestone Colorado and asked him if he might want to go see it. We decided why not, and went. The first thing we found was a Hindu temple, the priest there was so graceful about showing us through the temple, he put some paste on our foreheads and rice. I don’t remember much about the statues we saw or anything, only that it was exceptionally peaceful there. He invited us to the full moon ritual, which I am sad to say I never made it back to. He was amazing and gave us directions to where the shrine was located.

I drove to the base of Crestone Needles, this was shortly after Halloween, and it had just snowed. The drive up to the base of the mountain truly felt as if we were transported some where else in the world, as if we weren’t in Colorado, but in Tibet, or someplace equally awesome. We parked the van, and took off up the trail we were assured ended in the shrine to Buddha. Now it had just snowed, and I was not wearing hiking boots, nor was I really that well equiped for a hike, yet we took off up this path, every now and then we would see animal tracks. I saw clearly several times that a cougar had crossed our path. Marvin kept assuring me that Buddha was protecting us, I am sure he just didn’t want me to chicken out on him.

Flags lined the path as we walked up the mountain, close to a mile maybe further, when suddenly around the corner came this golden visage, surrounded by flags, was Him, the statue of Buddha. I remember the feeling of awe and how it shook me to my very core, it said on a sign there that this statue held a part of a statue in Tibet. I know next to nothing else about this, but I will say when ever I need to get back to that feeling, that statue is where I head in my mind.