Strength

 

I have started hiking again in the mountains after about a twenty-year hiatus.  It wasn’t a conscious decision to start up again, but strangely, one that came serendipitously as if guided by deeper forces in the universe I would call the Holy Spirit. Early one Saturday before the sun was up, I was making by weekly pilgrimage into Boston for yoga class when I unexpectedly found myself on the mass turnpike heading in the opposite direction.  By the time I reached the exit to turnaround, it was too late to make class. Finding myself in the Berkshires at seven in the morning, I found a little cafe in Lenox just opening, had breakfast, and thought about what I would do with the unplanned day that lay out before me.  I might have gone to a museum when out in the Berkshires but on that gloriously blue Saturday morning in early spring, I found myself longing to be outside so headed over to Mount Greylock for a hike up the mountain.This planted a seed which has taken root in the desire for more time in the mountains and a return of the longings for hiking that I had a few decades ago.

 

As I consider the ways in which my life has unfolded, I am seeing more and more of the movement of the spirit as the instilling force.  This can be hard to comprehend because it can feel like we are in control of our lives making choices to do this or that, putting in the effort or not to pave our way in the world.  And while we do have to put in effort, the effort to take on difficulties, challenges, love, and creativity over a long period are beyond what the ego itself can undertake.  The ego energy is motivated by programs for self-happiness.  When difficulties come, as they do, the ego will lack the fortitude to continue.  Along any path, the smaller parts of the self will lack the will to continue when the self-happiness, accolades, security has slipped away.  The root source for energy to maintain a difficult practice or undertaking that nonetheless feeds our deep desire for growth and purpose come from an inner wellspring for which we are conduits.  It is not unlike the very breath which animates us and gives us life and is wholly outside of our own power to manifest. We tap into this wellspring through spiritual practices which calm the programs for self-happiness and self- centeredness so we might hear and follow the subtle callings for creativity, generosity, service, and solitude which come from and connect us to the divine indwelling spirit.

 

The pull, strength, and stamina to hike now seems to come from such a place. When I was younger, hiking in the mountains gave me a great sense of freedom, Eros, and hope.  Anything seemed possible after a long hike, catching a glimpse of the world from 5,000 ft or more. I still get the feelings of freedom, Eros, and hope when hiking but now I am not hiking to conquer something or prove myself strong.  Those long 5, 7, 10-hour hikes give me a chance to focus on what is in front of me, the effort of next step. Taking in the magnificence of ravines, cascading waterfalls, undulating ridges gives me joy, makes me feel expansive and open, strong and freer from old habitual ways of being. Hiking has become a pilgrimage, a walking prayer to be open, receptive, aware.  It makes me more tender and prepares me to receive to the flow of life rather than to set up resistance and boundaries to what is unfolding.  I become more deeply connected to the innerself, the inner divine spirit animating my movements in the mountains through the mysterious calling which has brought be back there.