The View from the Mountain
A friend sent a note asking how things are with me. Things are good in my life. I'm healthy and happy. I'm not wealthy, but I have shelter, food, clothes, transportation and some luxuries (school, Internet, the opportunity to travel to see family and friends). I suppose I have some wisdom, as I should, proportionate to my years.But, could I write back and just say, "Everything's great. Thanks for asking! :)" or "Let me tell you about Country Bunny Bath and Body ..." ... lol ... Nooooo! :)
Instead, I described a mental activity I practice sometimes. After writing the letter , I realized you were not able to see over my shoulder well enough to read it in its entirety, so here is what I wrote:
"I'm trying to look at it the way I try to look at most things in my life. I got an image from a book (I think) a long time ago. The book may have been by a Jungian analyst (or loaned to me by one, or both).
There was a description of being in a place (life, up close and personal). Then, in the thought process, you back away and move away from the current events (crisis, problem, experience). You move further and further away and up the hill until you cannot see the problem at all. You can barely even see the town.
I don't think that thought process was original with me. I think I read it somewhere. But, I like to do that with my life (when I remember). In my imagination, this image has always been a tiny town. When I think of it now, the town looks like an old European village. But, until I tried to describe it, the mountain beside the town was in China or maybe from a Japanese painting (those paintings of huge waves and huge mountains).
So, in my imagination, I back away from my current experience. I move away from it through the streets of the village. My 'real life' gets smaller and smaller, more difficult to see. As I begin to climb the hill beside the town, I can see my life and my problems again, but they are small when compared with the size of the village. I continue up the hill.
The hill is really a mountain. The mountain is HUGE, like the Himalayas or the Swiss Alps or the mountains in the Japanese paintings. As I climb, the village becomes smaller and smaller. The clouds drift by below me obscuring my view. I begin to notice the life around me on the mountain. I begin to see the trees, the rocks, the dirt, the sky. I feel the breeze and the sun on my skin.
Whatever happened in that village is long gone.
It feels that way anyway.
After a while, my heart is full and happy. My breathing is slow and easy. I can feel that my face is smiling. I know that whatever happens in that village feels important to me when I am right there next to it or in the middle of it. I also know that it is very small when I look at it from this view.
Filled with the view from the mountain, I make my way back to the village. I move slowly. I am in no hurry to return to fretting and negativity and frustrations. I look around and try to pull it all into myself. I want to take it all back with me so that I will have the mountain perspective within me when I walk back into my life in the village.
I return to my life in the village. Sometimes I forget about the mountain. But, sometimes I can go there in my mind, and the cares and the vanities of the moment fall away. I see that I am not so important, and I am very important. I am a part of something bigger than myself. In that way I am important. I am a part of life. The sunshine and the breeze, the clouds and the trees on the mountain, all are a part of the same wholeness of which I am a part.
....
I got a little sidetracked. What did you ask? ;)"
posted by jordanrep.com/10522 @ 12:24 AM
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