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The Crying Places & Atlas Obscura

DECEMBER 13, 2018

## “There is a wild beauty in the Scottish Borderlands that moves me to the core of my being…

Smailholm Tower

I could not get enough of the landscape as we wound our way through the countryside in search of one of the few remaining restored tower homes from the 15th century. The low-grade buzz of anxiety that is always with me melted away as I stood on the raw, windswept land beneath Smailholm Tower. I had a feeling that I had come home, maybe for the first time. I could not stop the tears, it was as if a long held grief was released as I made my way up the craggy path to the entrance of what remains of a complex that was built to withstand the English raids of the time. How could I know a place so well, where I had never been before? How could rocks and sky speak my secret name and know me? I do not have answers to these questions, but I am somehow more complete for having been to this land. A place that now holds my tears and my heart.”

I am honored and delighted to be one of the twenty-two submissions chosen for the “22 Places That Brought Atlas Obscura Readers to Tears” for the online [Atlas Obscura - Curious and Wondrous Travel Destinations](https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/22-places-that-brought-our-readers-to-tears). Traveling with two of my best friends to this amazing place is forever a part of my own internal landscape and something I will never forget.

Twenty-Seven Turns Around the Sun

By Lea Goode-Harris • 15 Mar, 2024

twenty-seven turns around and around the sun the moon smiles as well

The Retiring of a Labyrinth

By Lea Goode-Harris • 05 Aug, 2023

Labyrinths provide us with a path to practice change. Some labyrinths have withstood the passage of time for thousands of years. Others are here for just an afternoon, drawn in the sand at the edge of the ocean. Many modern labyrinths were meant to last for years, but because of unforeseen circumstances their time is shorter than intended. And they once again help us to practice letting go and giving thanks for the time they are with us. The Labyrinth of Life at the Sebastopol, California Teen Center reached such place of letting go and is at the end of one chapter and the beginning of another chapter that is yet unknown.

Making A Three Circuit Labyrinth

By Lea Goode-Harris • 05 Aug, 2023

Sometimes... a labyrinth can take years to become a physical reality. In 2018 I met with my friend Deb, to discuss her desire to have a labyrinth on the beautiful land she lives on. Despite our plans and several meetings, listening to the land and finding the right spot, the labyrinth did not come to fruition. Fast-forward five years and in the blink of an eye... it happened!