Courage and Faith

 

The longing to be in the mountains again came to me unexpectedly.  Grace pulled me back after a long time away into their grandeur, wildness, and the immense physicality of the challenge. The beloved soaring cathedrals of the White Mountains are where I spend most of hiking time along with some travel to the higher mountains out West and Canada and a recent long trek in the Himalayas. I am as thrilled now as I was 40 years age when I first backpacked by their beauty and strength.

I am still surprised when I am able make it up a tall peak.  From the bottom, it looks like it will be impossible to get to the top.  But I set out anyway, not knowing for sure how far I will get, taking one small step after another to see where I might end up.  I am always surprised and excited when I make it to the top.  But I am no longer hiking to get to the peak.  I hike as a spiritual practice, a pilgrimage, to come closer to the Divine. This is why I was called to do it.

What makes hiking spiritual, for me, is the way it helps me to settle my consciousness into my body and the moment as it is unfolding.  Even as my mind fluctuates, I can notice this tendency for rumination and distraction and through this awareness snap back into the present moment.  My straining body calls me back into the sway of my hips, they syncopated swing of my arms, the deep lung breathing. My senses fill with the fullness of the natural world, the earthy fragrances, bitter sharp winds, crunch of snow, bright blue sky, cold granite.

Hiking is pilgrimage because it brings me into the deepest parts of myself and closer to God, the miraculous of life flowing through meadow and stream, gnarled wood and stone, my beating heart, the birdsong.  Oftentimes, I am accompanied on these long hikes by my ancestors, my grandparents and father.  And I feel the closeness of my mother and daughter in my heart.

Hiking helps me to bring forth healing qualities into the world like courage and faith.  Each step into the unknown requires courage to attempt what might not be possible, hard, uncomfortable and faith that I will figure out what to do.  I am grateful for every hard step, the wild freedom of the journey, the vulnerability, the sacredness of meeting myself on the path.