breathtaking views

if you have ever been up high on a mountain, then you know the power that you feel when you stand on the top, peering down at everything below. and, if you are like me, then it takes your breath away every single time. it’s an indescribable feeling of empowerment + humility, awe + wonderment. for me, it is always a spiritual experience – whether i have hiked up the mountain on my own two feet or driven a car around winding roads.

up there, closer to the clouds, with the great big open sky all around me, looking down on the beauty below, i feel that i can breathe more deeply than anywhere else in the world – even the ocean + the desert (though they are a close second and third). it feels holy. sacred. a special place where gods and goddesses and jesus and buddha and oracles hang out. so, when i climb a mountain and stand up there, i feel as if i am close to being in the presence of holiness. perhaps, i even brush up against holiness myself.

and, even though i am way up there, i do not feel disconnected from everything and everyone that is down below. in fact, i feel as if the perspective makes me closer + more connected. you see, when i am way up high, when i can breathe, i see + understand things as they really are. it’s like going inward and meditating. the ego is stripped away. fear, anxiety, and the desire for control fall away… because up on the mountain i remember what is important + what is real. up on the mountain, as i breathe in the air and touch the sky, i remember that love + peace + humility reign. i remember that we are not all little people running around, disconnected from each other, unable to relate to each other, selfish + greedy – even though we act like that.

up there in the fresh air, surrounded by trees, and standing in the sun, i am certain that, even though we get it wrong so often, we are one. one human race. and, once again, i believe in hope. i remember that, even though it doesn’t seem like it, this world exists to be a place of love + peace, and we all have a part in co-creating that world together.

so, filled with inspiration and a vision of how it is supposed to be, i climb back down the mountain to enter everyday life. because of the top of the mountain, i am prepared to go back into the valley. besides, i can always climb a mountain again.

“Then I was standing on the highest mountain of them all , and round about beneath me was the whole hoop of the world. And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being.  And I saw that it was holy.” – Black Elk

light + love xx