I am the Mountain

Spirit and soul

That is the true test of what is right—not what instantly falls into place, but what entwines its roots with yours, and allows you to most fully blossom. Not what shows up instantly and unexpectedly, but what stays, what remains through it all.

Title inspired by a book I’ve had in my queue for most of the year. (I swear I’ll start it tomorrow) The Mountain is You by Brianna Wiest

A song through time.

As I have gotten older, the call of the woods, the forest, and our mountains has gotten louder—louder and louder until it becomes a hum entwined with everything. It’s the sound in the spaces between heartbeats, filling the void and setting the tone for everything.

The hum is more than a desire to be out in nature. It’s hard to name and eludes my attempts to clearly define it. Steadily humming, it craves to be laid bare and emptied, only then to be reborn. Perhaps a call for transformation is the name of its shape. But it’s a hunger that reaches back across time.

An ache that demands to be unplugged from today, and plugged into the heartbeat of the mountain.

This is one part of a bigger story, about a moment of clarity.

The one where we are confronted by the part of ourselves we try to ignore. But much like running away from something attached via a rubber band - the distance is an illusion. It always snaps back.

View from the top of Mt Carleton, New Brunswick. The tallest peak in the province, and part of The Appalchian Mountain Range....

Last year, after a successful backcountry camping trip, and somewhere in the late summer reverie, I decided the right way to push through my bad back injuries …. was to climb a mountain. I knew in my heart then what I’m damn certain of now - it was about more than that. Not just the weak back, the chronic illness, or anything physical, really.

Obviously? Obviously.

In the upper region of our province lies some (but not all) of the northern section of the Appalachian Mountains. Mt. Carleton is the tallest peak in our province. Of course, when folks mention the Appalachians, we think of a southern drawl and our minds wander far down the coastline - I’m not sure it’s common knowledge they run up to Canada. I’m not sure we talk much about mountains anymore, but that’s for another time. It’s a clear choice to climb if one is inclined to go for some nature therapy. Disconnect to reconnect.

Disconnected from nearly all of my family, especially the paternal side, there’s a feeling of lost roots. Floating just outside of any concrete time and space, my imagination often wanders, and I wonder what the roots really are that sustain my systems. (If you’ll allow me to play with plant analogies for a while). We talk about lineage and ancestry, culture and identity claims - and I’ve always felt a little unmoored from mine.

Memories of my maternal grandparent's farm and forest, as you may already know, perhaps play a bigger influence now than ever and will likely always form the base of my perceptions. I’ve been sensing into, researching, and exploring everything I can find about who and where I come from for the last few years.

Perhaps we could call it all the great unmooring. Or, learning how to breathe in freefall. Untethered, she reroots. Finding grounding by letting go. It’s a work in eternal progress.

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Okay, so if you know present-day me at all, you know a walk in the woods and a clean house are the salves to my soul. Climbing this mountain is, therefore, likely best thought of as a radical act of therapy—self-healing. Perhaps we could call it self-trust by force.

Fully into the panic attack here. Truly the trail less wandered. Here is where I had to lean into acceptance. You almost have to unfocus your eyes to see the trail.

Proof to no one else.

No matter where we are in life, the only thing we have to prove…is to ourselves. Whatever the shape of that thing is, it’s not something that needs to be proven to anyone but ourselves.

All of the “woulda coulda shouldas” - they’re marketed by ourselves, to ourselves, as something external. The honest truth though, is that it all comes from within. We pick which ones are clung to our chests.

It’s taken a little over two months to be able to put some of this into words, as I needed to watch it unfold within and hold some sort of patience for all of me to catch up to what I’m starting to understand.

I am not limber, skinny, fast, or nimble. I am slow and lumbering, built to be an endurance machine steering a plough, perhaps - a little too heavy for my joints, but stubborn, oh peak stubborn. Appalachian bog witch meets Scottish farmer it seems.

Everything about this trip was woven with a magic that words fail to capture.

Standing on the edge of the lake, a bald eagle swoops down, no more than 30 feet from me to snag a dead salmon from the edge, leaving behind a large feather. The **third** time this summer an Eagle dropped in so close it felt as though I could reach out and touch it. This time, leaving a gift.

North American Indigenous and many folk traditions see the eagle as having a close connection with the creator. The Mi ‘gmaq, whose unceded territory this provincial park sits in, believe the eagle feather helps carry prayers and messages from the World of Earth to the World of Spirit.

A resounding affirmation of the moment of importance and connection that was building.

We even had a low-flying, warm and deep thunderstorm roll over the top of us…providing a rainbow once it had passed. It was the vibration that shook things loose in my soul.

Everything had the poetry of peace wrapped around it. A breath of air that just made sense in an innate way; even the powerful thunderstorm felt like it was providing an obvious and needed piece of the puzzle.

Such a supported way to have a panic attack 3/4 of the way up a mountain.

Well over a kilometre to go before hitting the peak, out of breath, out of energy, out of strength, the rising fear that I wouldn’t be able to make it to the top clocked in.

Adrenaline came to the rescue, and with it, the devil-on-the-shoulder chest-tightening panic. My vertigo kicked in, and I could barely turn around to look at how far we’d come. My vision narrowed to only a few feet ahead of me. My arms could barely lift my trekking poles, my heart ready to explode - and ten years of anguish threatened to explode out of me. Like the volume of existence had become so overwhelmingly loud, it was only a distant ringing. My mind was at once racing and completely calm. It was only feeling, in a way.

It was as though the pains of what we’d endured in the last decade, the trauma, the grief, the sorrows, sat on my chest and tried to keep me from the top.

The stories of enoughness, of friendships and love lost, of community found and lost again, of family and loneliness, of potential and it’s absence, of hard work and illness - all of them whirled around me twice as fast as my heart was pumping.

Turning back at that point was going to be more difficult than simply finishing the climb and continuing down the other trail, which smoothed out just after the peak and had an “easier” path down.

The only way out was through. Forward. Once step at a time.

Such is life, right?

There is no rewind, no turning back.

Only forward movement, ideally mindful, probably not demure.

Missteps are risky when climbing boulder-laden rocks that are freshly rained on, and you’re gassed. Missteps are terrifying when you have a lumbar disk that doesn’t like being contained.

One step. Then another. Then another.

Let the weight sit on your chest.

Pause.

Breathe. Don’t fight, but don’t give in.

This is where you are - there’s no sense in fighting it.

A new kind of radical acceptance for my body and mind.

Oh so incredibly slowly (shout out to the most patient partner in the world), we continued the climb, and I narrowed my perception to just keeping my movements supportive for my bad back.

Belly button in, spine straight, shoulders back, glutes and quads at the ready. One step at a time. Push. Push. Climb the boulder. And the next one. And the next one. Have a mini breakdown when there’s a whole new set of boulders to climb.

Will we ever reach the top?

We will. We did. I did.

We stopped for some water and a snack at the top. My head still whirling and dizzy. But from there, I knew for certain along these peaks and valleys, stretching south….. this is where I’m from. This is where I’m meant to be. Here is where I’m in communion with all that ever was and will be me.

Maybe it was the elation and rush of happy chemicals in my brain, maybe it was the point the whole damn time. But it all made sense, it was all so obvious. There are some things I need to leave behind here on this peak.

Old stories, weathered and outgrown. It’s time to put down upper limits, limiting beliefs, and the concern about ‘enough.’ I don’t need them where I’m going. I’ll hear their echoes, sure, but they aren’t mine to carry anymore. So much has come and gone, and I’ve been clinging to echoes of what I thought should be…

not what is.

It’s always been accessible. This flow. I am in my place. All of these forests are the place that we’ve been for 300 years (give or take a few new entrants) - living in relationship with the earth and smaller communities of all kinds. On the edge of the mountains and the bustle. A magnetic draw to our power.

Throughout our descent from the peak, exhausted and eager to see the car (and have a full meal), so much of the weight was left behind in those steps. The cracks and scars in heart and soul will always remain, but the raw aches seemed to fade and weight eased off my chest. Finally, not needing to try and put down the burden - it found its home naturally, floating between the clouds and the mountains top. The space between my heart and mind finally stopped screaming “why” and moved rapidly from “it is” to “it was” - appreciating the space that was on offer the whole time. I don’t need the support I thought I had - I am supported by so much more.

We get so lost in our expectations of how things should be or in clinging to what we think we should have had that we completely miss what actually is.

We all are rich in resources if only we could open our hearts to see them.

I’m thankful there is so much more of the park to explore, and we’re eager to make it an annual trip. A place of peace and healing, and the sort of challenge that makes you stronger.

For now, as fall settles in and the trees blaze their firey colours, I’ll continue my walks in the park at the base of our tiny mountain. I’ll meditate with my eagle feather, supported and knowing that prayers for healing are answered - when we are willing to do the work.

We just have to keep showing up for ourselves. Stepping just outside our limits. That’s how our capacity for all things expands.

One step at a time.

Until next time,
- Kate

the fading rainbow…