A Love Affair

I am having a torrid and wild love affair. It’s with a mountain range.

I live at the tail end of the Rockies, in Northern New Mexico. We are the last stop before the range slims down and disappears somewhere above Santa Fe.

As I walk along her Ponderosa trails, the intoxicating smells of vanilla bring me to utter peace and pleasure at the same time. I come to center inside myself. If I am out of sorts, I lie down on her sweet and softly needled floor and soon come into rhythm with my soul.

Today I was recounting the lessons that She has taught me, this mountain range, over many seasons. I first came to visit in 2018, as a hospice chaplain. I was here for the humans, her residents. Yet, as I began to travel these high country roads, I was embraced by the most stunning sights I could imagine. I began to fall for her then.

The second time I arrived here was during COVID. I came as a writer, hunkering down under the severe curtain of winter, the shut down of the world and the Mountain’s austere gaze. I was smitten. I must live here, I thought to myself.

Now I (we)do live here. Everyday, I lift my eyes to her storied and wild peaks that hover above the small, almost inconsequential humans that huddle at her base. The sheer, raw force of Her presence restores me.

During the seasons, first as a hospice visitor, and now as a dweller, I have learned both hard and joyful lessons.

Lesson one. Collaborate whenever possible and get help when you are on difficult terrain. This goes for mountains and human landscapes.

During that deep winter of my first writing season, in a small reconstituted shepherds hut above Peñasco, New Mexico, my husband came up for a long weekend to do some cross country skiing. He is a seasoned and avid mountaineer. I have always leaned on him for our outdoor adventures. But this time he said he was taking a back seat and letting me lead. Since I had been exploring many trails—both in my interior landscape and on the mountain— I was eager to take the lead. Foolishly I guided us off a beaten trail into the back country with no compass or GPS, saying “I’ve got this, I think this is the right way. I’m pretty sure. Yes, this is it. I recognize this view, this trail, this land contour!” Meanwhile I was leading us further into the heart of the wilderness. The whine of snowmobiles and the sounds of human voices evaporated.

Five hours later, as the sun began to hover above the western horizon in that cold winter wonderland, and the temps began to drop precipitously, I realized we were gravely lost. I didn’t recognize anything. I felt my heartbeat rapid in my throat, my head burning as the panic begin to overwhelm me. My husband looked quietly at me. My instinct was to begin to climb hills to get a Birdseye view. Any hill. I was ready to begin burning energy. And there were many endless hills tucking us into God-knows -where. The tension was not only within me, it was between us. I began to drop into doomsday thinking, wondering how my husband was going to stay warm in single digit temperatures that night? I was the only one with a goosedown ski jacket. Just then we came upon a steaming pile of scat. My head blew up with images of cougars, coyotes and bears gnawing at us as we tried to huddle together for warmth. “I trusted you”, my husband’s eyes conveyed as I sank deeper into my shame and terror. Finally, I spat out in anger, my go-to when I’m scared, “Well you’re the mountaineer, what should we do?” He answered, “I don’t know. I don’t know this landscape at all”. The fear was palpable, and the desire to blame seized both of us.

Finally he said in a measured voice, “I would stay low and follow the stream until we come to some power lines. We know there are power lines down by the road”. And that’s what we did. We started slogging through the snow along the river.

It was dark as we popped out onto that lonely and very dark mountain road. At that point, I was praying for a miracle. A car that could carry us back to our car somewhere faraway from here. And the miracle materialized in a black SUV with a middle aged woman who perhaps noted the oddness of two persons with skis thrown across their shoulders, hiking up the canyon road in the middle of the night. She stopped and offered a lift, even as multiple cars fled by us, leaving us coughing in a cloud of exhaust. This angel took her own safety in her hands to offer kindness. We found out we were 10 miles from our car. It would’ve been a long night.

The lessons of respect and restraint when one is tempted to be overly self assured or lean into one’s own hubris remain with me to this day. There were other lessons, such as the kindness of a stranger. Humility.

These days I’m also learning about honoring every being that lives on that mountain. As I left her piney, fragrant flanks today, I noticed a snake slowly making its way across the dirt road. I did not gun the car or roll over the snake in my car. I live with the sorrow of daily seeing all the small, furry bodies on the country roads here, carelessly run over. I’ve developed an odd habit of stopping and placing them on the side of the road so the birds and predators can feast on them without getting killed also.

Instead, I screeched to a halt and got out of my car to watch the snake. He ignored me, this thickly roped, muscular snake that must’ve been about 2 feet long. I stood in awe and curiosity as he slithered into the sage.

Finally, the biggest lesson is the deep solace that comes when I pause my life, put all my well laid plans on hold, and come here to enter the Mountain’s exquisitely beautiful temple. Though the Mountain has no care about my return, I realize my soul has been secretly longing. My soul cares. Coming here slows my pace down as I begin to coordinate my breath with the slow heartbeat of nature. The peace and calm as I walk deep into Her wilds is extraordinary. It is the closest I can come to unitive consciousness. Pure and unparalleled.

This is joy.