Stopping and Sitting is an Option when Climbing a Mountain
Climbing a mountain
Many years ago, I climbed a small conical mountain on top of which was an ancient ruin, something at one time used as a lookout tower. It had been described as a place to wander up to, to take in the views, to get a 360 degree perspective on life.
While the sun painted fuchsia across the sky and coyotes sang with the dawn, I stretched my legs and began to climb. I walked up behind an old cabin in search of the trail head, following a simple set of instructions, “Go behind the cabin and you will immediately see the trail to the top”.
For the life of me, I couldn’t find it. After much searching, followed by a laissez faire recklessness, I headed off in the general direction of the tower, crossing an old roadbed, overgrown with chamisa and grasses and looping down into a small gully brimming with the desert colors of Indian paintbrush, red rock, and sandstone. Its precious morning coolness would soon melt in the desert’s heat.
Bushwhacking Country
I took off my shoes, to feel the earth and walked slowly to avoid the sharpness of the ground under my feet.
From the base of a small cliff, I moved cautiously as I pulled my body up and over its jagged surface. I skinned my knee and scratched my knuckles on the rough stone. A small snake wound its way around the rock on which my hand rested. Never giving me a second thought, it slid across my fingers. I hung still as it passed.
Once I was at the top of the cliff, the ascent to the tower looked easy! Looks DO deceive. I climbed over boulders, around trees, through a patch of prickly pear, putting my shoes back on a little too late and had to pull cactus thorns from my foot. To recover, I lay back and let the sun soak all the aches and pains out of my body.
As the top of the mountain grew nearer, it got steadily steeper, making the climb one of defined focus and greater attention to detail. It required a steadiness of purpose that wasn’t as necessary earlier nor would it have been, had I found the trail.
Suddenly, THERE I WAS, at the summit! As I turned to take in the surrounding country, I was stunned to see a five-foot wide, mammoth of a trail, stretching out before me ALL THE WAY DOWN to the base of that small mountain. At the bottom, it curved and disappeared into the trees fifty feet from the old cabin! (So much for “…you will immediately see…”). Earlier, from “down there”, I hadn’t seen it at all!
Laughing out loud I took in the views and pondered…which was the better way?
From that mountain top with its fortress long abandoned and its 360 degree panorama, it came to me that every journey, whether on the main highway or the bushwhacked trail, is simply a set of unique experiences. If I had gone the “main drag”, I would not have felt the coolness of the gully, had the handshake with the silent snake, nor more importantly, discovered my own strength and rhythm in the climb.
Coyote trail head
The thing that struck me though, is that if we only know one way, if in our frustration of not “finding the path”, we unconsciously bushwhack our way through life, we sometimes end up “reinventing the wheel”, expending a lot of extra energy when we could have had instead, a kinder, more generous-hearted time with ourselves.
If we think, “there is ONLY one way” to do something, we lose a bigger perspective on our lives and all the available resources that go unseen.
And on the other hand, if we only dare to take the “main road”, we are limited somehow. We won’t experience wonders that are hidden 20 yards off the trail.
To be able to consciously choose our route, honestly taking into account the factors of the time needed, energy to be expended, and the bottom line of “why” we are actually doing something—all this is what is important in any choice, regardless of which route we end up taking.
And sometimes that takes STOPPING and just sitting for a minute in order to let the Universe lead the way. If we are moving “pell mell” as my mother used to say, we won’t hear, see, touch, know what is being offered.
May you have a blessed week that allows for stops and deep breaths as you consciously choose your way, Emily
(c) 2010 Emily A. Easton
Loved the writing! Thanks for sharing the beautiful photos and insights.
Emily,
The look and feel of your website is very soothing and inviting, just as your story invited me to learn more about you. After perusing the other pages, I see how you have provided and will provide to those in search of more meaning in their lives – new hope. Best to you.