There is a hilarious video from about 15 years back: “So we went to Banff and we saw a unicorn. I thought unicorn were so-o-o extinct!” I kept recalling it through the years, and for some reason my latest adventure a month ago reminded me of it.
We didn’t see any extinct species in Kananaskis that weekend, but we did climb 9K to reach the top of the mountain… which is something I haven’t done in 6-7 years, and even then, it wasn’t that high and that steep.
Anyway, besides great sights to behold, I’ve also learned a couple of things. Darren who drove us there and navigated the whole thing, he is highly skilled and very experienced climber of many years. He had several good advices for me to keep walking without walking out on the whole thing.
Walk slow, he said. Slower. Slower than that. You’d want to conserve your energy and still have of energy when it’s time to go back.
I must admit, it was hard for me to walk slow. I think I’m doing a better job walking slow in the last several years due to working in the hospital and moving side by side with patients that have mobility issues. Yet even that was too fast, apparently, for climbing Opal mountain.
I kept walking up the steep slope, thinking of that, trying to breathe steadily, make small steps, and that made me think of making steps and completing the Steps in recovery. My first sponsor Ted G. said, if you go low and slow, you will grow.
About half hour before we reached the summit, Darren said I need to count the steps – to one hundred, and then count over again. He said that as you’d get progressively tired by then time, counting steps would take the mind off the strain. Meditation of sorts? Sure. I was by then focusing on rune mantra for about an hour, but counting steps sounds like a good idea, as well. We read and recite the Steps in AA meetings each time. That way we introduce the newcomers to them, but we also re-introduce ourselves to them at the same time. Twelve Steps lessons are that when dealing with life and frustrations and resentments, to look at them not as “these people! oh if I had it my way in life!” but “where is my part in this situation?” Reading the Steps re-introduces us to how to see it and how to walk with that wisdom and how to apply these skills. We move through life taking a good look at how to move accurately and kindly to everyone involved.
I am still learning all this. There are days I want to take shortcuts. Then some other days I see how shortcuts could have screwed things up, and I am grateful for keeping it steady and as long of a walk as was necessary.
the “Total death of worldly care in the mountainous embrace” and “Even mountains have their own set of steps” images are by me.
Either everything is important
Green and happy was the forest
Trezvennost II 