Sacred Journey -- 08/10/07

The mountains live forever, he was told. When he looked at them, he didn't see them as alive. They didn't breathe, they didn't move, what kind of life is so still he wondered?

One day while he was out, he looked up to a ridge on the mountain. He felt an immediate affinity with the slope as it reached towards the great sky above. He began to understand as special feelings inside of him started to surface.

That night as he started to fall asleep, he drifted off in his thoughts, to that mountain and the ridge that touched the sky. He fell into a dream and then into a vision.

In that vision, he walked up the mountain, to the top. Once there he looked around and saw all that there was to see. The eagle below soared with the wind, the river of life flowed into the horizon, he was now in the sky and knew its power.

The mountain that lived forever gave him a piece of itself to quell the anxious spirit that had dwelled within him. All the questions he ever had were now answered. He understood his place in the world. He knew why he was born and how he should live going forward.

He awoke the next morning with a mission. This was the beginning of his sacred journey that would last the rest of his life. Every day thereafter he acknowledged the mountain for the gift it gave him. On each annual anniversary of the start of that sacred journey, he carried a heavy stone from the base of the mountain to its summit.

The stone represented the weight of his existence he had once carried before he knew the secret of the mountain's life. Reaching the top of the mountain, he could leave that heavy stone there indicating the burden was forever lifted from his heart, mind, and soul.

The secret from the mountain was his sacred journey. He never revealed what he had learned there. When asked, he would look to the mountain and say, "The mountains live forever. That is enough for anyone to know."

Don