Yesterday I finally hiked Mt. Washington!
I started the hike as I often do, by kneeling down and feeling the elements. I placed my hands in a stream and put the water on my face, allowing the energy from the mountain to flow over me. I meditated for a minute, grounding myself and becoming more in tune with nature, becoming more mindful of the energies and honoring the work we were to do together.
Shortly after beginning the hike I received the following message:
It is the nature of water to flow down the river, down to the ocean. The oceans move the continents and the continents move the oceans so that each works in harmony with the other. Much as the tides go in and out the oceans and the land work together: the ocean comes in and pushes the land, erodes it away, while the land holds the water and shows it where to go.
Back when there were few of us humans on the mountains, we skimmed along the surface, along the skin, along the bark. We flowed like many small streams or we flowed like rain, but when a group of us traveled at once it was like a torrent. When there are few people and they are tender they skim across the surface of the mountain in communion with the surface, the bark, the skin. But as more people travel the mountains, when we come together and concentrate, we wear away that covering, that beauty, that grace, and reveal the strong bones beneath. The mountain reveals its bones, its stones, its rocks, its dirt, its strength. The same is true with us: as more energy, more people, cross us, we can become worn away by those who are harsh upon us and have our bones revealed. But everything is strong underneath.
As it is worn away the mountain becomes vulnerable, and it allows us to become its skin. As we are worn away we become vulnerable and we allow those who wear us down to become our skin. If not treated, if not cared for, if not loved with tenderness, we can become hard and we can become unyielding such as the stones of the mountain. There is also beauty and grace in allowing those to traverse our surface, to wear away our protection, and not only be upon our skin but upon our bones and act as our shield, act as our barrier, our tenderness, our grace. When we wear down the mountain we must also protect it, become its shield and become a part of its tenderness, its grace.
It was a wonderful message to start my hike with, this view of the mountain allowing us close to itself and in return the necessity for us to cherish and protect it.
I like to start my hikes as early as possible; it's a lovely meditative time for me to hike alone with nature. However, I nearly always end up finding some wonderful person to chat with along the way, so that we may learn a little of each other and share in the wonder. This time was no different. About a third of the way through my hike I passed a lean-to shelter, provided for those who wish to spend the night. I always enjoy checking out the construction methods and design choices of these wilderness shelters, and it gives me a reason to visit with whomever is inhabiting it.
At the shelter I saw a fellow packing up his gear. His trail name was Blue Heron and he was a Rabbi from Philadelphia. We ended up talking for hours, eventually reaching the summit together! Our topics ranged from the dangers and merits of organized religion, to the beauty of cairns (piles of rock built for use as trail guides in bad weather), to the wisdom of reconnecting science back to spirituality. This is a prime example of how following my intuition led me to exactly the right place at exactly the right time for what I needed, which on this day was an inspiring hiking mate.
We all have this intuition guiding us, it's merely a matter of listening to it, a matter of doing something because you're drawn to it without needing to understand why you're doing it. People intrinsically feel the energetic pull of nature, of the mountains. Hikers often go into nature (whether consciously or unconsciously) in order to use that energy to heal themselves, and to connect to the universal life energy.
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