Blue Domer

Blue Domer

Remote in hand, I prop a pillow under my head. The sofa is cozy and I begin to relax.

Click. The TV pops on.

"Zesty freshness with every shower,” says the commercial.

Click.

“Hands up if you’re down to get down tonight,” sings the music video.

Click.

“My plan is to canoe the Denali River for three months,” says a smiling, bearded young man, standing beside his canoe.

Drawn in by his enthusiasm, I pause.

“I’ve got my camera and canoe in this beautiful wilderness that is Alaska, and I’ll just make a video journal of my journey—record my thoughts, feelings, and reflections.”

I reposition my pillows and nestle in.

He launches into the river, gently paddling. He settles into the canoe as he settles into the river with ease and grace. He pans the camera to the trees, rocks, and water—there’s a sense of peace and tranquility in him and the scenery that appeals to me.

At first, his journal entries are straightforward naturalistic observations of wildlife.

"Ah, beavers over there swim across the shimmering waters," and "There on the banks see the deer grazing." The kind of footage and commentary you might see in a documentary.

Gradually, though, the landscape begins to come alive before his eyes. He and his observations shift, becoming more metaphorical, even poetic. He sees in the eagle above an image of his soaring spirit, feels the cold river water as the passage of time, from youth to manhood.

It’s as if the surface of reality transforms into a mirror of his soul. All the small rocks surrounding boulders become their tears, weeping for the endless procession of life into death they’ve witnessed.

As he sees himself in the world around him, I see myself in him. We are traveling together now.

Then one crystal clear night, as he sits by his campfire, gazing at the stars, he says something that transforms my life forever.

“I guess you could call me a Blue Domer,” he explains. “The sky forms the dome of a cathedral, under which the Earth becomes an altar.” Each step is a prayer of worship. Thus, I walk the Earth in reverence for the divinity that it is.

I sit up, tingling. I’ve never heard anything like it.

In an instant, I am there with him, by that crackling fire, under those twinkling stars. I feel the cool Earth beneath me as he does.

An image slowly comes into view: I see the Earth from space. The blue sky appears as a thin bubble-like sphere. I see myself beneath it, there by the fire. Looking upward into space, I see the solar system—another bubble—and the Milky Way beyond, another still. I journey outward to the local group of galaxies, into ever-larger, all-encompassing nesting bubbles.

At the outer edge of the cosmos, I turn to see so many bubbles, too numerous to count. Then I reverse direction. Passing through each one, like steps, I return—back to the Milky Way, back to Earth, back to the fire.

Spiraling inward, I behold my organs, cells, and their nuclei—each one a bubbleverse unto itself.

I feel like each bubble is a drop in the cosmic ocean, and that cosmic ocean is in each bubble. I am those bubbles, each and all.

From that night forward, I walk this Earth in reverence and awe, just as he does in a cathedral of many domes.

The wind tickles the trees and an echo from my former self whispers to me: How can anyone be happy in a world full of suffering, pain, and insanity, culminating in death?

The answer a lone canoer in an Alaskan wilderness of mystery, wonder, and awe has given me is that it’s not to be found despite those things, but rather in their transcendence.