The Mountain, she whispers to me
The Mountain, she whispers to me…
If left too long she cries in moonlit skies, so I wake ere the sun rises to heed her call.
With morning dew and the scent of sage I follow her path into the sky. She calls the wind to my back, easing my ascent as the sun rises in the field of a peppered sky.
Soft grasses guide my path. I reach out to softly caress them as I would a lover’s body. Love I have known, love I have lost, but love still remains in my heart; for the Mountain I confide in and she keeps my secrets within her stone.
When finally I reach the top, I sit upon my favorite rock. Now at peace, she sings to me in quiet pleasure. She whispers back the memories I have given her, the secrets I hold dear, so lest I should ever forget the love I have to give.
So often when I am hiking I find a point of clarity. My mind rushes to catch up with my moving body and in that hanging moment I gather my thoughts.
I used to have these same moments in the shower before work and I would come in with ideas to share with my employees - I would usually lead the conversation by saying: “Well, I have a thought, and it’s either genius or insanity; I’m not sure which yet”. It was usually followed by an eye roll or a “Here we go again!”. Some of these ideas worked, some didn’t, but most of them were interesting enough LOL.
On the mountain, these moments are often poetic in nature, sometimes profound, sometimes just an understanding of my feelings or perhaps a situation I’ve been dealing with. We all hold secrets - the innermost thoughts that only the universe knows because it is stored in the energy around us and rarely spoken aloud.
On my last hike, the above poem came to me as I approached the mountain to climb. I realized in its formulation that I have been hanging onto a lot of unspoken feelings about my past and I have kept them in places that are most sacred to me: the Mountain I climb most often and the images I capture.
The acts of both stillness and movement in nature are cathartic. They release a lot of unneeded tension, resets the nervous system and allows a clear mind and relaxed body to re-enter the universe, whole. It is a form of self-love to treat your body and mind with respect. It needs to move, it needs to release, it needs to rest and it also needs to remember - Our memory is activated most often by sights, sounds and smells, so the more we immerse ourselves in the things that give us a healthy release, the more our mind will remember those memories. Good or bad, they all have something to teach us. The Mountain in this poem personifies our mind as it holds our memories in its stone.
Recently I have had a lot of reconnections with past people, places and emotions that I haven’t been able to fully release or process for some reason. Sometimes I wonder if I am meant to hold onto them because there is still much unwritten. Other times I think they are there to simply remind me of my ability to continue to be the best version of myself; to continue to give all the love that I know I have within. This is a depth of love that one of those secret pasts awoke within me. There was a point in my life where I gave all my love away and left none for myself. I will be forever grateful to that past connection that taught me that I am worth much more than that. This is what the last line of the poem is talking about - Not just of the love I have for others, but also gifting that same love to myself.
Remember that you are a miracle, of the same stuff the stars are made of, coalesced into this incredible thinking and feeling being. The fact that we get to be on this earth every day, breathe its air, witness the wind on our face, and feel the earth beneath our feet is astonishing. Give yourself what it needs so you can do this for a very long time.
Stay well my friends. I love you.
Ascension
