Thousands of years ago, according to ancient biblical lore, a young man named Ya'akov, (Jacob) left his desert home in the Negev desert oasis of Beersheva and began journeying toward Haran. Still en route as the sun was setting, he stopped in a "certain place." Ya'akov took a stone, placed it under his head, and lay down to sleep.

He soon found himself in the midst of an astounding dream. In the words of the Bible:

Ya'akov went out from Beersheva, and went toward Haran, and encountered a certain place. He had to spend the night there, for the sun had come in. Now he took one of the stones of the place, and set it at his head and lay down in that place. And he dreamt: Here, a ladder was set up on earth, its top reaching the heavens, and here: messengers of God were going up and down on it. And here: YHWH was standing beside him, saying..."I am YHWH... I will watch over you wherever you go and will bring you back to this soil; indeed, I will not leave you, until I have done what I have spoken to you."

Ya'akov awoke from his sleep and said, "Why, YHWH is in this place, and I did not know it... How awe-inspiring is this place! This is none other than the dwelling place of God... the gateway of heaven."

Early in the morning, Ya'akov took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on the top of it. (Excerpted from Genesis 28:10-18, E. Fox translation).

"a certain place."

"Stones of the place."

"...lay down in that place."

"YHWH is in this place":

Clearly, what the biblical storyteller is trying to convey to us is the mana, the spiritual power, of that still unnamed desert place - as well as the spiritual power of the state of liminality, the state of transition. For having left his home, having left his familiar world to journey into an unknown place and an unknown future, he is in a state of emotional, psychological, and spiritual liminality - a state of being, indeed, beautifully aligned with that "certain place" itself, for it, too, is "neither here nor there." It is somewhere on the road between two places: the place of Ya'akov's past - Beersheva - and the place of his future, Haran. With the stone of "that certain place" under his head, he is opened to his own visionary power, the power of recognizing that that "certain place" is the abode of the Divine, the gateway between earth and heaven.

So, truly, we sense two aspects of the biblical story that are vitally relevant to us today.

• Wherever we are at any given moment, is a place of transition. Every millisecond, every nanosecond, an infinitude of infinitesimal, seemingly undetectable changes are occurring in our body minds and in the land around us. To be alive is to be, like Yaakov, on a journey between the ever-disappearing past and the still-not-arrived-at future. As we like to phrase it, to be alive is to be moving, changing - to be alive is "to dance."

• If we open our eyes and our ears and our hearts and our psyches and our souls we free ourselves to experience wherever we are as "a certain place," a place of power, a place where the holy and the human are dancing together. To paraphrase the visionary poet William Blake, "If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear as it really is, infinite."

But how, when your spirit-vision is muddied, when the "doors of perception" have gotten glued shut, when you find yourself thwarted in your Dance, do you begin moving again, do you return to the vibrantly alive state in which we are meant to dwell?

One of the ways, as people from many different cultures around the world have believed since ancient times, is to go on a pilgrimage, to go to those "certain places" on our planet -- those "certain places" which seem to have an energetic force-field, a vibrant energy, a powerful mana, that helps to free us from the limitations of ordinary perception and, in the process, awaken us to radiant vision, awaken our bodies to the Dance.

It may mean taking a journey at home, by spending a quiet day hiking in the mountains, in the desert, at a vast shore, or in a sacred valley.

Pick up a stone, imagine its history, the story it could tell of the power of natural forces, if it could speak. Pick up a shell at the seashore, hold it in your hands, and translate its water-journey into movements in your own body. Walk down the streets of Manhattan, and focus only on the materials out of which skyscrapers are constructed, and imagine their origins. Or simply, focus only on the trees. Read Eric Sanderson and Markley Boyer's; Manhattan: A Natural History of New York City, and experience the island anew.

It may mean going on a retreat to one of these "certain places" that have been noted by many to fill our spirits. We feel that way about three places in particular - places radically different from one another.

The first is the desert -- the Sinai desert, in particular. In the boulder-ridden area around Mount Sinai, the remote Santa Caterina monastery, with its ancient manuscripts, has stood for over 1,000 years. Hiking among those boulders, spending hours in the coolness of the caves, is to feel the immense energy of the living, breathing, earth and the power of the divine.

The second is the Big Island of Hawaii, where Pele's presence is vividly felt on the lava fields, an awe-inspiring magnetic place of rainforest and near-desert, of waterfalls, a living volcano; flowers so fragrant you truly feel yourself in paradise. When you stand on the lava field of Kuamo'o, the mana seems to affect every pore of your body.

And the third is Costa Rica. It's been a long time since we were able to immerse ourselves in the desert power of Sinai or the volcanic vibrancy of the Big Island - but ah, Costa Rica is awaiting us! We feel blessed that our retreat in Costa Rica will be happening soon! Many of you may have been to this Caribbean wonderland, felt the energy so vividly alive in its jungle, and felt the holy peace of the white sand beaches. We feel so acutely that moving our bodies to the asanas of yoga, breathing in the spirit of the place deeply, truly Dancing in that environment, internalizing the vibrant, life-changing energy of that "certain place."

Indeed, such "power places" are all over the world. Anthropologist Martin Gray, for example, describes the Hindu concept of tirtha, a Vedic word that originally meant "river ford, steps to a river, or place of pilgrimage," but evolved to mean more than physical locations. Devout Hindus, says Gray, "believe them to be... the meeting place of heaven and earth," like Ya'akov's awareness of this "certain place" as the "dwelling place of God," the "gateway to heaven."

According to poet Susan Suntree, whose remarkable new book, Sacred Sites: The Secret History of California, will be coming out next year, the indigenous peoples of Southern California - the Chumash and the Luiseno, among them - experienced the whole of the landscape as vividly alive places of extraordinary power. In the "land's power and presence," says Suntree, "They recognized the energies of the original creation: the Ancestors." She tells us the Sacred Circle came full circle at Castle Peak in the Simi Hills, which for the Chumash people was Kas'elewun, the "Place of the Tongue."

And why did the Chumash people call it the "Place of the Tongue"? Because, as Susan Suntree points out, the energy of the original creation can speak to you at Castle Peak - as, indeed, at all "certain places" on our extraordinary, living, ever-changing and magnificent planet. But it can speak to you - only if you know how to listen.

For more info about our retreat in Costa Rica March 19-29, 2010 visit: www.parashakti.org