The Mountain Calls

Going to the Summit

“After one arrives at the summit, after going through the total transformation of being, after becoming free of fear, doubt, confusion, and self-consciousness, there is yet one more step to the completion of that journey: the return to the valley below, to the everyday world. Who it is that returns is not who began the climb in the first place.”

                                      Ram Dass (Journey of Awakening)

I'm headed to the mountains, y'all. On my way to my version of Mecca, to the high, holy hills of my homeland. North Carolina beckons and I must set my feet northward. At least once a year, I need to reconnect with that green lushness, where people speak my language. Pilgrimage is traveling to holy ground, to renew, refresh and come back changed.

In Spirituality Group yesterday, we discussed the concept of “home”. We defined home as a safe place, a refuge, a place of contentment, containment and privacy. A place where we feel free to be ourselves. Then we expanded it to “at home”; where and with whom am I most at home? Not surprisingly, most people did not choose family or the family home—they chose people with whom they let down their guard and allow all of who they are to show, and the place that is theirs and theirs alone. Then we spoke of home as an internal reality—the feeling of knowing 'who lives here' inside ourselves. The more solid we feel in our own skin, the less we need external “home” because we carry home with us. We are home.

We will climb many mountains. Some will feel like Everest, and some, like the hills in my neighborhood. At times, we will fall and bang and bloody ourselves. Sometimes, we will scare ourselves to death and think we can't go on. But, when we complete the arduous task of trekking uphill for long stretches, standing on the summit is grand. We see things in a whole new light—a wide expansiveness broadens our vision, everything is clearer and cleaner. We can exult in it, but we can't live on the summit. When we come back to the 'real' world, down on level ground, we can bring with us some of that clarity, some of that expansiveness. We can place that new brick of understanding in the foundation of home, our home, ourselves.

                                              In the spirit,

                                                 Jane