Have you seen a snow leopard?  Very few people have.  I ask because this morning I chanced upon a series of photographs of the elusive cats, taken by Inger Vandyke, an Australian photographer.  After seventeen days of looking and waiting, Vandyke managed to photograph and film one of the cats chasing and capturing a bharal (blue) sheep. According to her account, posted on the internet, she found this experience "almost spiritual."
     Many decades ago, the now deceased writer Peter Matthiessen wrote eloquently about his quest to see a bharal sheep and snow leopard in a compelling book titled The Snow Leopard.  In it, he recounts his journey through some of the most remote sections of the Himalayas to find these fascinating animals.  As he traveled, he also visited numerous monasteries and, when he could, contemplated the recent passing of his wife Deborah. Like Vandyke, Matthiessen found his trek and the glimpses of life it presented to him a deeply spiritual experience.
     Unless we totally reject that a human being can entertain even a semblance of spiritual sensibility, we cannot help but identify.  When we come face to face with the raw and unvarnished mien of nature, we almost instinctively turn our thoughts to awe and the metaphysical.  How, we wonder, can such a thing produce such profound feelings of "otherworldly" marvel in us?
     The French mystic Simone Weil once wrote that one way we see the love of God is by witnessing the beauty of nature.  Indeed.  Whatever our etiology regarding the existence of the universe may be, we must still reckon with the ability of its many wonders to provoke our awe and metaphysical imagination.  Does this beauty really not have a name?