Continued from Climbing Lembert Dome
Freezing up on the path. Feeling Frozen is that emotional place where everything just stops. The deer in the headlights not knowing if this is where it ends, or is this the rebirth of feeling alive supremely. Years after this particular trip I experienced the emotional freeze in a different way. I wandered through my house, room to room trying to grasp what to take- there was a Fire and I had to get out but what should I take? I just froze, I could see myself standing there frozen, I can still see it. It wasn't fear exactly it was a stopping of time in order to grasp the reality bend. It was the quintessentail Wait-What?- but you can read more about that here if you like. Back to the dome experience.
I was in my mid to late 30’s at the time of this trip. I grew up going to schools, following rules. When you climb the mountain you find there is so much more. Rules can’t help you overcome the fear or make you put one foot in front of the other. ONLY LIFE can do this. Only life, lived, moves us forward.
Emotion wells, rises and releases in every elemental form. Stubbornness, tears, whirlwinds and vortexes of confusion, Passions, anger, the heat of danger, willing a change, or having a change of heart.
But water is our meandering symbol. Water is the work of mastering our emotions. I read once that if someone is said to ‘walk on water’ what is really understood is that the process of mastering one’s emotions has occurred. To still the waters solid, lessen the gravity, release the fear, is to walk on without drowning in an emotional place.
Our waves of emotion rise and fall by the pull of gravity, the force that attracts and also repels. We can become polarized in the push pull fields streaming and screaming the right and the wrong, the good and the evil. But if we stop all that and shift into reverse we get l-i-v-e. Just l-i-v-e.
To immerse in the waters and come out clean is to have filtered out all the nonsense we have been taught and born into. As we work with our emotions while we climb the mountian, we go through the pains of birth. We breathe hard and push ourself through the laborious great work as we birth our own self.
So as I climbed Lembert Dome with my group, in the amazing granite landscapes of Yosemite, I struggled on the path for sure. I froze up several times, looking down, afraid of falling, afraid of moving. My friend and fellow staff member stuck with me and the few other kids who were also slowly working their way up.
Working with groups is like watching it rain. We all form our little spheres of experiences, but then we puddle together into the group experience. And this is what we did at the top of the dome.
But just before climbing the last short stretch to the top I stopped on the path and sat down on a rock next to one of the kids. Clearly he was filled with emotions and hesitating to join the group. We didn’t say much other than me saying, yeah, I know, …. Let it out. I’m right here with you. He did. He sobbed with those deep breaths in between. I can't say what had welled up inside him. I knew him, I had a sense of it. I can only say that this was the point of the journey, the climb up. To get out and move beyond what you think and move up to what you want to do, and do what you didn't know you could do.
I was the last to the top. We all made it- exhilirated. To say the view at the top was breath taking is incorrect. The Climb Up was breath taking, also known as a lung burner. The view at the top is other worldly. I had just traveled from below to above and wandered through every elemental experience. The view was the Quintessence. Where I was and what I saw clearly at the top of the mountain is the substance of everything gained on the way up. BEAUTY.
We lunched and laughed and did a group activity while we lingered at the top of this giant rock. I cannot know definitely what the others experienced on the way up, I can only say that as a group we had all together reached the peak of our five day adventure.
The thing is you can’t stay on top of the mountain because we’re here living in the below. We rise up like evaporating water, but get pulled back down, like the rivers into the ocean.
We hiked down by way of the back side of the mountain. It was good that at the start of our journey I didn’t know there was a easier path. I might have taken it instead, and lost out on so much.
The hike down, for me, was almost more difficult. Its hard to come down, back to earth. I kept slipping and falling on my butt. I kept my sun glasses on even though it was shady. Our guide used me as the example of how not to hike down. All in good fun, and it was. This is how kids learn from adults, by watching them fall, and reaching out a hand to help them up. We're all on the path hiking up and down together.
We are told that Eve fell and took Adam down with her. But apparently she labored to get up.
We got back to camp where I was back in charge. Dinner, evening activity, showers, etc..etc. But to my surprise I wasn’t in charge. Our MLC guide and good friend by this time, had taken over the job. He cleared the house, wrangled the kids, and led me to a bathtub. He had drawn the bath, put candles in the space and gave me the moment. I took it. I took my time in the water to reflect.
At the top of that mountain that day we each wrote down a single word to express what we had just experienced.
My word was RELEASE.
I had amazing photos from this hike we took in the 1990's. But they have since burned up in a California Fire.
But the group remembers.
Experiences stay with us.
Memories don't burn.
Photo shown at top is from Yosemite Hikes
