Tadasana (Mountain)

 

 

When I was younger, I had a dream of being a mountain climber.  I wanted to be like Arlene Blum who led the all women hike up Annapurna in the 1980s. Blum studied chemistry so she could climb mountains and make a living as a chemical geologist. She and the women on her team seemed so strong and courageous, living adventurous and exciting lives.  Hiking made me feel free and courageous.  After my first backpacking trip in the White Mountains of New Hampshire I was hooked. I was amazed by the views from the peaks such wide-open space, the artistry of granite, deep flowing valleys of pine.  The hiking wasn’t easy for but that was part of the allure.  My lungs burned, my legs ached, it was the most physically demanding thing I had ever done.  That I could make it to the top of a tall mountain after hours of hiking restored me in the faith and courage I lost in adolescence. It was thrilling to think what might be possible if I were as strong and courageous as Arlene Blum and the women on the Annapurna climb.

 

This longing to be a mountain climber stayed with me long after I had given up on making the dream real. It remains part of my live unlived that accompanies me on my journey. While I have done quite a lot of hiking since that first hike in the White Mountains, all over New England, out west, in Europe, I realized early on that I didn’t have the stamina to hike above altitude and got very afraid on glaciers and on rock faces. And something inside pulled my energies in different directions to a graduate school in economics, work in social justice, mothering, and then yoga. Still, some part of me that longed to be like Arlene Blum remained like a seed resting in winter soil, the hope that I might learn to live more courageously and with greater purpose – the things that mountain climbing represented.

 

The purpose filled life, I see now, has more to do with why we do things more than what do. It requires bringing the innerself into alignment with the outer self.  For this we must cultivate skill in discernment, to hear the longings of the innerself and courage to express in the world what might be fragile and uncertain. When I honor what is inside of me that longs to be manifested in the world whether it is a grant proposal, a piece of creative writing, a yoga certification, a pilgrimage to a mountain then the outer activity feels most full, purposeful, and satisfying.  I might yearn to climb in the Himalayas but if that climbing is not married to the deeper longings of the innerself the experience will lack depth and meaning and will run out of steam or burn itself out. The longing to climb vast mountain ranges comes from the part of me that hoped (still hopes) to be more courageous and free.