Elevated perspective.

Yoga on the cliffs at Lake Powell on a chilly October day last Fall

There was a time last Fall when my life unraveled, as lives sometimes do. Illness, surgery, loss of our business, relocation, personal conflict with an old friend turned ex-business partner, near loss of our daughter, teenager angst, toddler angst, and so many other things that we all face at times in life. It felt like I unfortunately had every struggle in my life piled on my shoulders in a few months time, and if you've ever been there yourself, you know how lost and overwhelmed you can become. As I lost control of my life, I felt very small. I was infinitesimal, so small, so unquantifiable that I was truly immeasurable and therefore absolutely without power. A small crumb tossed on the crescendoing storm of life.
     When my legs were strong enough to carry my 97 emaciated pounds up a mountain, I set off into the desert on a hesitating hike and made my way to the top of the lowest peak in our neighborhood. It was in that moment, wobbling ankles trembling against my Salomons, that I realized the great secret of perspective. Mountains are magical because they elevate the sightline. I felt small when on the same plane as my big problems, but when I stood on top of a mountain my big problems became a speck on the horizon and the tip of my shoelace loomed larger that the roof of my house far below in the dusty distance. I couldn't change the circumstances in my life, couldn't even control my poor bladder or my teenagers or the broken garbage disposal. But I could elevate my sightline and completely change the vanishing point in the big picture of my little life.
     Whenever the God of the Old Testament wanted to whisper from heaven to His children, he led them up into the mountains. Tibetan Buddhists consider their mountains sacred, a realm where spirit and flesh brush against one another and pure spiritual knowledge is received. The mountains of North America, like Shasta, Navajo Mountain, and the San Francisco Peaks, are revered by Native Americans as points of spiritual power. The nuns in "The Sound of Music" instructed Fraulein Maria to "Climb every mountain!" It's incredible the difference it makes to walk up the side of even the tiniest hill and see your surroundings from a higher view.
     I hiked and hiked. I have cried on the tops of every hill and mountain within an hour of Mesa, Arizona. I have screamed and kicked rocks, and laughed and blown kisses at God. I kept a photocopied sheet of scripture, Moses talking to God, tucked into my fanny pack beneath the water bottle, hard boiled egg, granola bar, lip balm, extra gauze for my weepy scars, and my grandma's clip-on earrings. It was in those moments on the mountains reading about God leading His children out of bondage that I began to feel big again, and received the spiritual strength to hold on and wait for my own deliverance.
     Find a mountain. Climb. Pray. Repeat often and exuberantly.
   
vanishing point

n

1. (Fine Arts & Visual Arts / Art Terms) the point to which parallel lines appear to converge in the rendering of perspective, usually on the horizon

2. a point in space or time at or beyond which something disappears or ceases to exist