I think of the experiences of deep, wordless, transcendent  joy that I’ve had in my life. About ten come to mind immediately. A conversation with a wise, older friend over fifty years ago. A few minutes, sitting and relaxing by a remote wilderness lake, after a long portage in the northern fall woods. Sometimes after Quaker meeting. A couple of times watching migrating geese at wildlife refuges. 
      These are the times when I’ve touched something very deep, very peaceful, very welcoming inside.  They hold a significance that needs to be paid attention to, not dismissed as a passing, lucky experience. 

Ultimately, the most important wild fact is what the Eskimo calls “koviashuktok.” Koviashuktok, of the inner dream, is the outlet. It is one with the living water welling up from the very springs of being that nourish and sustain all life. Without it life becomes a dreary, dead place, and deep within, our spirit begins to rot. The inner dream need not be some great and overwhelming plan; it need not be a dramatic picture of what might or must be some day.

Koviashuktok is the quiet persistence in the heart that enables us to ride out the storms of churning experiences. Koviashuktok is the exciting whisper moving through the isles of our spirit answering the monotony of limitless days of dull routine. It is the ever-recurring melody in the midst of broken harmony and harsh discords of human conflict. It is the touch of significance which highlights the ordinary experience, the common event, the wonder of each hour, the beauty of the Earth.

Koviashuktok is not an outward thing. It does not take its rise from the environment in which we move and function. It lives in the inward parts, it is deep within where the issues of life and death are ultimately determined.

We need to keep alive this exciting whisper, for as long as we are koviashuktok, we cannot lose the significance of living.
      - Sam Wright, Edge of Tomorrow

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Below, the two-page spread of this entry from the upcoming Heron Dance book, Nurturing The Song Within.
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