Thoughts from the Mountains-

            It seems, sometimes, that the mountains can speak.  Not in words, but rather in whispers of soft sweet sounds, whispers that you must listen closely to understand.  My mountains whisper soft comforts to my soul, and sometimes I listen to them.  It is not an easy thing to choose.  I wish I could say it was, but listening to the mountains is breathtakingly intimidating.  To listen to one that knows so much, to believe in the whispers from a source deeper than what could ever be described in the logic valued so highly by those of us who call ourselves thinkers, scholars, rational people (though that may be an oxymoron in itself). 

            Have you ever just listened to the mountains?  I’ve been living in their majesty for two months now, and sometimes still I am skeptical.  And yet, despite the logic I learned from so many of my teachers, I am beginning to understand the mountains.  They love so selflessly, standing there in all their splendor, daring us to…. To what?  For sure they are daring, one need not even understand the whispers to understand that the mountains are a dare to human kind, to all of us who try to make meaning out of this absurd and chaotic world, a dare to dream?  A dare to conquer?  A dare to live.  It is by choice that I wake up every day, look out my window, smile.  And yet, with the mountains daring me to live, what choice, really, do I have?

            I accept.  I surrender.  I acknowledge the beauty and the wonder and unexplainable whispers that resonate from the mountains to the depths of my soul.  I embrace the daily dare to live, to wonder with open arms and an open heart.  The dare to live.  To selflessly rise up, and breathe the whispers back to their source. 

            When the days are sunny and warm, I admit it is easier to listen.  The sun calls me from my hiding place behind the window, and beckons me outward.  “Come,” says the sun, and pulls me grudgingly away.  Some days, it seems too hard to follow.  Some days, I curl up in my empty bed, close my eyes to the world, and wish only for a few hours of bliss, ignoring the world outside.  When days are long and nights even longer, when stories enter the ears and make their way all the way down into my heart, when hugs hold me tight and lift me through what I never could alone, I pull the blankets over my head and pretend it is all going to be okay. 

            The sun, though, the sun does not need to pretend.  And the mountains know naught but truth. 

            Is this truth what makes the dare to live so compelling?  That the sun will never play pretend and the mountains continue to whisper, regardless of if I am listening or not?  The sun is shining, even if the clouds bring grey skies and snowstorms; the mountains whisper secrets free for the taking, and I, I want to know.  I want to listen; I want to learn of the selfless love whispered constantly through the trees, down the slopes of ageless rock, timeless secrets shared throughout eternity, forever ours. 

            I look sometimes, out across my mountains, and wonder if there is really a difference between what it means to live and what it takes to love.  This dare to live, with majestic and timeless creativity, is it not also a call to love boldly?  To love without expecting anything in return, just as the mountains live and love, selflessly.  Or is it more simple than that?  Is the dare to live, a call in itself, a whisper that cuts through the glass I try to hide behind, shattering what it is that holds me back- a view, boxed in on all sides, my reflection staring back at me, blocking what it is I long so much to see.  This dare shatters the box, shatters the preconceived notions of what I thought I could put myself, and my world, into.  A dare to live.  To step outside; to breathe; to listen.  To accept the wisdom of the mountains without judgment, without wishing it were any different than what it is.  To accept what is, here and now, in all its glory, in all its holiness. 

            It seems, sometimes, that the mountains can speak.  And I regret only that I do not listen more often. 

            I hope you can find something in this poetry.  It is times like this that I am convinced my words know more than I do.  Maybe this will hold meaning for you, for I still do not know how to make meaning out of all that I have written. 

Much love,

Bridget