The three stages of climbing a mountain
Nature can be tough and kind, you can be in awe and disdain
One: Your journey to the mountain’s home from your home.
This can start in your car, a friends, a train or in your bed and many other alternatives according to one’s dogma or way. A nervous wave of energy consumes you as you near the precipice of where the human world and the mountain range meet. Ultimately you are excited and let’s not forget, fully stocked with food in your belly and your backpack. You are at your physical peak and ready for the challenge. Often you may need to spend a day or two, sometimes more, traversing the winding wild of the mountain range, with the mountains peak ever present in your mind and vision. You may ask fellow wanders whether they have ascended: how was it? did you need this? that? Things are never clear until someone has been up and down.
Two: Your ascent.
This is the most fulfilling and conversely, the part which can retrospectively seem a blur. It can often be the most treacherous part of your trip, but accidents can happen anywhere. Take time, give presences. The thrill of actively pursuing a goal you’ve held in your mind and your social group will pull you up, translate into strength, steps. Conflicts are not conflicts, but battles you’ve already won. You’ve been mentally preparing for this whether you knew it or not. However nature can be tough and kind, you can be in awe and disdain
Three: Your journey to the your home from the mountain’s home. After the overwhelming cathartic release through physical and spacial success, you are proud, strong, and one ledge higher on your own personal mountain you’ve been climbing your whole life, although this part of the journey can often be the hardest. You are no longer amply filled with warm foods, you are at your physical lowest, perhaps you’ve been sleeping in a tent for some days in cold mountain conditions. Crossing a road you’ve crossed before, tired and bruised is not all it’s cracked up to be. Although you cannot underestimate the power of your mind: the thirst for a pizza, the craving for a shower will lead your legs towards your new goal, comfort. This is my favourite part of the journey: I feel released of my complex desires and insecurities. I’m grateful for the world around me: my friends, family, my past lives, my past identities. Life is simpler. Must eat, must clean, must go back into the human world.
