climbing the mountain

Technique and ability alone do not get you to the top - 

 it is the willpower that is the most important. 

 This willpower you cannot buy with money or be given by others -

 it rises from your heart.

-Junko Tabei, after becoming the first woman to climb Everest in 1975

Like many people, I am fascinated by dreams. I go through long periods of not being able to remember my dreams at all. Sometimes, if I have had a few glasses of wine in the evening or if I have had too much caffeine before sleeping, I have chaotic and odd dreams. Occasionally I will have very vivid recurring dreams. The past two nights would qualify as a sequence of two anyway, vivid, mountain climbing dreams. I don't know that I can attribute these dreams to alcohol or caffeine -- although in full disclosure I had a pint of Guinness at a Pampered Chef party on Friday night (and you know I could have used two pints to get through that) and last night I had a large black coffee and stayed up late at a fund raiser at our local coffee house.

Dream 1: Friday night. I am driving a bus -- a school bus type bus -- up the side of a rocky mountain. I have passengers - good people and families. I am traveling at a fast speed and feel that I don't know what I am doing. The bus is barely under control. I am on rocky and pointed ridges and mountain spines, and I recklessly keep climbing to the top - not certain how it is possible that the bus tires can stay on the mountain. I know I must get to the top and then make it back safely again, with all my passengers, bouncing here and there in their seats, untethered, in one piece. If I were to stop the bus, it would fall down the mountainside. In the first seat back is Mr. Snyder. He is in his 90s. He tells me I am doing fine. That I can do it. That he used to drive this bus and I am doing it just right. [Mr. Snyder, by the way, is my friend Kate's father. He passed away this fall. He was in his mid 90s and a smart, clear-thinking, dear man whom I admired. He was a man of tremendous faith.]

Dream 2: Saturday night. I am hiking up a snowy mountain, with a child on my back, who is sleeping and getting heavier as I climb, but I know I must carry the child. I am leading a group of two or three others trudging through the snow on the gradual incline up the mountain path. We know we must get to the top. I notice to my left, three huge and ferocious looking sleeping mountain lions. I do not speak for fear of waking one up and I silently hope the others see the danger also and hope that they too will refrain from speaking. One mountain lion is barely awake as we pass but seems to not want to be bothered with us and we continue on with strenuous effort.

I either do not remember the ending of either of these dreams or they end before I reach the top. Both dreams have struggle, and perseverance. What do they mean? I think I know that for me, the mountain represents life, journey, obstacles, challenges, struggles, striving -- with the danger of falling. (For others a mountain summit might mean some achievement, but I have taken a hiatus from ambition, and my goal these days is to have fewer goals and more mindfulness.) I guess I do feel responsible for others, and sometimes that weighs heavy. I take on leadership roles even when I am not certain I know what I am doing. I just keep going. And I don't know how it all ends.

Lately I have been thinking a lot about how I should be living my life, and I have not been as disciplined with my thoughts as I need to be, which can lead to uncertainty. I have struggled a bit with my willpower, ordinarily pretty solid, and I have decided that to cut down on these mountain climbing dreams and the unsettled waking thoughts... adding 10 minutes of meditation into my day - each day - is something I really need to do. As the wise quote at the top of this post suggests, willpower is not something you can get from others -- it is something that rises from your own heart.

Off to meditate right now. Tamboura CD, thank you.