Moved By Mountains

Moved By Mountains – Several years ago I dreamed I flew as a hawk, high above seared mountains, gazing down on granite soil marked only by occasional stunted evergreens. In my dream I soared and twisted, riding the air currents until I actually felt dizzy and then, as soon as I thought, “This is too much!” I woke up in my bed. I remembered the details vividly, though I had never seen those vistas in real life. Last week I saw the mountains of my dreams, that is, the dry stretch of the Rockies where the rain rarely falls. It was my third time traveling by car across the country, and this year the trip was punctuated by mountains, great and small.

From the hollowed out arches in Moab, Utah through the majestic Colorado Rockies, from the surprising baby Ozarks in Kansas (which was nowhere near as flat as everybody had said) through the impressive forested Alleghenies in Pennsylvania, I found myself by turns stunned, humbled, and moved by the great beauty around me. Pausing at the No Name rest stop before Vail, (where the rain did settle and the gorge was lush and green), I couldn’t help but feel that this was a place of magic and great spirit. Still, for the first time I could understand how the weight of the mountains, one after another, and the darkness of the valleys could lead to craziness, to a madness of insignificance.

It’s been several days and I feel like I am still digesting the sights and the wonder of this last trip. I know already that my meditations are richer: I imagine a Chi field that is deeper, higher and broader than ever before, and I feel a stronger harmony with and respect for the earth, something I would not have thought possible. I wait for my dreams now to touch that feeling of magic again, to contact the great spirits that shift beneath the dirt and soar above the peaks.