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of my divine vision in the world. 

Courtney Milne, internationally renowned photographer and author of Sacred Earth shared the wonderful story with me of how he started the work of fulfilling his life's purpose and dreams.  Now I share his story with you.

Courtney Milne's Story

My story begins in November, 1975, with a telephone call from St. Paul's  Hospital outpatient clinic in Saskatoon. Two days before, my chest was covered in boils and carbuncles so painful that I wondered if I was  going to die. I had driven myself to the emergency department where a young intern lanced all the inflammations to relieve the pressure.  He asked me if there was a history of diabetes in my family and I assured him there was not, but he strongly recommended I have a five-hour glucose tolerance test to get an accurate account of my blood sugar levels. The phone call was to report that indeed the test had shown a marked skew and that perhaps I should be starting a program of insulin injections.  I was shaken; thirty-two years old and everything in my life was going wrong. Earlier that year my wife had announced she would be leaving me the following day. My job as executive director of a large community organization applying for a cable television license was extremely stressful. I felt like a hollow man -- a person without a soul.

I desperately wanted to be away from the public eye, away from the volatile politics of the job, and doing something more artistic, more creative.   But there were no advertisements in the classifieds offering to pay a budding young photographer to create images that touched his heart; not one!

On December 1, I lay in my bed, perspiration soaking the sheets. My life had become intolerable. For three nights I had been unable to sleep, wishing somehow that my life would just be over, that I could be put out of my misery. At 3:30AM I arose, dressed, and walked out into a blinding snowstorm. I walked and walked and found myself at the edge of the river, but the winter ice prevented my from drowning my sorrows. I turned away, feeling disgusted that like everything else, here, too, I was a failure. I didn't even have the gumption to put an end to my plight.

At 6:00AM the coffee shop in the downtown bus depot opened.  I struggled in out of the chilling wind and ordered a coffee - first customer of the day. I chose a seat by the large plate-glass window and stared at my own reflection encircled by a billion swirling snowflakes, all driven relentlessly into the abyss of sky by an invisible uncaring force.  My stare fixed on those penetrating blood-shot eyes in the glass.

At that precise instant my life changed forever. I heard an unfamiliar voice state calmly and in plain unmistakable English: "If you want to survive, you will quit your job today, move into the little house on Clarence Avenue, and photograph buffalo and northern lights."
End of
transmission.
End of my life as I had known it.
I put in my resignation that same morning, shaking like a leaf, and borrowed money from my mother for a down payment on a little shack that had no electricity and no heat. On a bitterly cold day in January I moved in with Sasham, my two-year-old Samoyed.  I spent my first few nights in a sleeping bag in the middle of the living room linoleum floor, wrapped around a small catalytic heater.

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