Starting with the best: Adam-ondi-Ahman

 

When I write a blog I try to consider who I'm writing it for. 

This blog is a deep dive for my friends and family who know what Adam-ondi-Ahman is. The next post will have the details that anyone could appreciate, but this one will only be special to certain people. You know who you are. 

I feel deeply blessed that my husband put together a summer trip that started in New York at the Sacred Grove, which is close to Hill Cumorah and other awesome historic sites. It was a terrific launching pad for the lift-off at Adam-ondi-Ahman. It felt like the first part of the trip was a countdown to going to this sacred valley in Missouri. 

When is a valley not just a valley? When it's a place I've heard of for decades, and sung about in a Church hymn. We drove for an hour on the Missouri roads surrounded by unending green trees soaking up the July sunshine.

We came to a fork in the road, gravel to the right or the left? We went to the right, and we stopped at the first place to pull over. I stepped out of the car and only needed to take a few short strides to get to the edge of the valley. You can see pictures of it, but you can't get the real depth of it until you are there. I was taking a deep breath, squinting against the sun, and a breeze was toying with strands of my hair. I gazed across this immense holy valley and pondered ancient things.

As I walked away from my car, before I could even see the full vastness of the valley, I felt something shift inside of me. It reminded me of a few days ago when my back hurt a bit, and I did some stretches and a bone shifted/popped and my spine aligned. And it was an "ahhhh" moment, I felt much better. This place was like getting a spiritual alignment.

There is a sign that says: Adam-ondi-Ahman anciently. Three years previous to the death of Adam, he called Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch, and Methuselah, who were all high priests, with the residue of his posterity who were righteous, into the valley of Adam-ondi-Ahman, and there bestowed upon them his last blessing. And the Lord appeared unto them, and they rose up and blessed Adam, and called him Michael, the prince, the archangel.

I tried to absorb all this. To imagine it. I read a quote somewhere that said the best way to learn with the scriptures is to use your imagination. The Bible says Adam was 930 years old when he died. So at 927 years old - how much posterity did he have? I used an online calculator, and it said in 927 years you could have 35 generations. I don't know how Adam's people matured and married and started having kids. But it could have been Adam and 34 generations of kids having kids. Interesting. That's a lot of collective wisdom.

The valley first looks extensive, and then you go to another parking area and find out it keeps going even further. I wanted to walk out there, but I was stopped by signs that said stay off the grass because there are snakes. When we parked the car there was no one else but us. I considered Adam and Eve, and Ron and Suzette. Why don't we ever say Eve and Adam? I was reading the Book of Moses and it sounded like Adam didn't give Eve her name until they came to this valley, after leaving the garden of Eden. Moses chapter 3 is about the earth and God creating man and woman. Chapter 4 is about how Satan became the devil, tempts Eve, with Adam and Eve "falling", and death entering the world. 

After they ate the fruit. the Lord God came to talk to them.  This is verse 26: And Adam called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living; for thus have I, the Lord God, called the first of all women, which are many. The next verse is: Unto Adam, and also unto his wife, did I, the Lord God, make coats of skins, and clothed them. 

It is a summer of time travel. A summer of considering what does God need of me now, after all of that has happened to get to this point in time. This valley is a place of still waters for the soul. It is a place to feast my eyes and my spirit. What does a girl like me do with such a holy place? I feel like I have spent so much time chasing the idea of  "sacred". Can I go to all of these holy places and not absorb any of it? These places are designed to change me. Am I ready to be changed?!

We went back to the valley a second time, and I sat at a bench and studied the scenery that stretched out in front of me. I decided this time I wanted to talk less, and try to feel more. After all the reading and study and classes and prayers, I have come to know these things are true. Now I wanted to feel it. I am beginning to understand that there are different types of truths. The deepest truths are the ones you feel in your heart and soul, instead of thinking in your mind.

This time I wanted to stand there and close my eyes and listen to the whisperings of my heart. Listen to the Holy Spirit as it guides me. I want to be the Sunday school teacher next year, with a focus on the Doctrine and Covenants book! But I don't have to be that teacher to share what I'm experiencing on this trip. Right? 

The third place to look over the valley has a longer trail, along with some lovely flower beds. So many brightly colored flowers competing for my attention. Down the path is one huge rock, bigger than a dinner table. It's flat and perched on other rock and land, the top is about waist high. It looks like an altar. I knelt at it for a brief moment, looking into a grove of purposely spaced trees that seemed like the most ideal picnic spot including shade and perfectly mowed grass. The one thing I thought of was the scripture in Mosiah 27:31 Yea, every knee shall bow and every tongue confess before him. Confess that he is God.

This is a picture of what it looks like from the opposite side of where I knelt down.

I wrote some things at the picnic table: Some truth you learn and you know. Some truth you also feel. Truth comes in layers like masterful art. Can I feel how the Lord is pouring out peace and joy and knowledge? Can I feel it for me? Can I feel that I am called to speak and uplift and love, in the name of the Lord?

This is the place. In my line of view is where Adam and Eve probably spent their long lives. Eve. The divine feminine. The mother of all living. She was noble. She was new. "Were it not for our transgression we never should have had seed, and never should have known good and evil, and the joy of our redemption." I looked up different scriptures. Moses 3:8 says: And I, the Lord God, planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there put the man whom I had formed. Makes me wonder. East of what? The garden was in Eden. What were the boundaries of Eden? This valley is the place the new couple went after leaving Eden.

Going to Adam-ondi-Ahman felt a bit like going to the Celestial room in the temple. Being alone there felt like a hushed kind of awe. 

If you like references, here are a few.

Section 116 of the Doctrine and Covenants book is only one verse long. It was revelation given to Joseph Smith the Prophet, at a place called Spring Hill, in Daviess County, Missouri on May 19 of 1838. It says: Spring Hill is named by the Lord Adam-ondi-Ahman, because, said he, it is the place where Adam shall come to visit his people, or the Ancient of Days shall sit, as spoken of by Daniel the prophet. (Daniel 7:13-14 and 22)

Also: D&C 78: 15 and 20 

D&C 95:17

D&C 107:53-57

D&C 117:8 and 11

That's a lot of scripture to type out, but I will write out hymn 49. Now it has a special place in my heart. In the hymnbook it says to sing it peacefully.

This earth was once a garden place, with all her glories common. And men did live a holy race, and worship Jesus face to face, in Adam-ondi-Ahman.

We read that Enoch walked with God, above the power of mammon. While Zion spread herself abroad, and Saints and angels sang aloud in Adam-ondi-Ahman.

Her land was good and greatly blest, beyond all Israel's Canaan. Her fame was known from east to west. Her peace was great, and pure the rest of Adam-ondi-Ahman.

Hosanna to such days to come, the Savior's second coming. When all the earth in glorious bloom affords the Saints a holy home, like Adam-ondi-Ahman.

ldsliving.com says there were three songs sung at the dedication of the Kirtland Temple. The Spirit of God, Now Let us Rejoice, and Adam-ondi-Ahman. Which is interesting, because the Kirtland Temple is where went after visiting Missouri.

I have a testimony of these things. There was a poetry in the syllables of the clouds over the valley. It is a place that speaks the language of my soul. A place that connects Adam and Eve with me, in 2024. After this visit I am forever bound to the peace and beauty and power of the original Mom and Dad. I created a new word for this experience; I zenjoyed it very much. It was such a blissful place. Peace, be still. It was a place of inspired radiance on a glorious summer day in Missouri. This is the Promised Land. Where man first graced this planet. Where immortals chose a dip into the mortal realm, learning to use the gift of agency. We came here to pretend we aren't Gods in the making. To play like we are limited matter, instead of unlimited love.