“Heaven and earth are only three feet apart,
but in thin places that distance is even shorter.”
– Celtic Saying
The concept of thin places comes from pre-Christian Celtic mythology. Thin places were known by the Celts as places where the spirit world and natural world connect and mingle. Thin places aren’t necessarily sacred religious sites, although they can be. Thin places are often located in nature all over the world, but they’re said to be felt the strongest in Ireland and Britain.
Everyone’s experience of thin places is different. For me a thin place is a place where my soul rumbles, or roars or rests. A place where anything feels possible, where I’m suspended in a bubble of pure bliss. Like Alice In Wonderland, a thin place makes me feel big, or small, depending on what I need most in that moment. In a thin place time disappears and the past, present and future align. Thin places change me. They unlock the doors to the home within myself, a place where I feel fully alive.
My favorite thin place as a child was cradled in the branch of the maple tree outside our house. As an adult anytime I laid in the back of my VW van I felt transported to that in between place – even when the van was parked in the driveway. I experienced a thin place whenever I sat in silence with my elderly mother on her porch swing and listened to the birds sing. Here in Porto, I feel the thin place every time the Douro river greets me. My sister feels the hospice house she works at is a thin place- a place where the veil that separates heaven and earth is nearly transparent.
You can’t search for thin places. Thin places are waiting to find you. Where are your thin places?
