Hola from 5,416m high
Congratulations! You've reached 5,416m of altitude, please take a seat while your body is processing that you're about to die.
High camp: Summit of the trek. I mean, if we walked 3k higher we would be in the summit of Mount Everest. Fucked up.
My body was so ready to die. I could not breathe, and my legs were on autopilot. Eyes partially closed. I kept thinking "damn bitch, you could be anywhere close to the beach reading a book or something, and you purposefully chose to walk the highest mountain range in the world?" Humans are funny creatures.
The vibe up there
Roof of the world energy. Potent vibrations. Not in the "GooD VibRaTiOns" way. These frequencies shake up your whole (energetic?) body in such ways that the deepest darkness within awakens. You feel it traveling through your whole body, reaching and terrifying cells that never imagined such darkness existed within you. A black, petrol-like sticky amalgamation of all the shit you've pressed snooze on when it comes to facing yourself.
Purity's sharp blade – Being in a place so sacred, so energetically "clean" feels like you're entering a white room full of light, and only then you look at yourself and realize "oh fuck, I had not idea I had all this shit on me - how come I've never seen that I was covered in dirt? Unbearable lightness; what once was a foggy window to the mind feels clear and guess what! inside is not looking pretty at all - there's a reason why we keep it foggy. There's a reason why we love buffer. There's a reason why stepping into lightness burns.
Ah. So challenging even oxygen feels like one of these foggy distractions – Breathing feels like a treat, and you realize that it is: these extremes make you realize that being alive feels more euphoric than anything else we can take, drink, snort. And they also make you realize that the only reason why we do those activities in the first place, is to feel far from alive.
In lack of noise, face your Self
Not easy this trek. Not easy facing yourself. In theme with the inner chaos exploration of this trip, I felt like this sticky mess now has a place within my Self. Eye-level, surfaced instead of dripping everywhere. Still very much there, but in context.
I feel so sober. Not in a "not drinking or doing drugs" way. But in a "no noise" way. As I wrote on my week 2 writeup, closer to chaos. Less spiritual, more human. Less fucking alien, more earthy.
Eye-to-eye with your (s)elf – I guess is all a red pill blue pill situation; would you rather live a life filled in with buffers and distractions, or come face in face with what you have to front? Surprise surprise the reward of the latter one is self-knowledge. The reward is not being unsolicitedly splashed every now and then with your own black sticky shit.
Final thoughts
You can't run from your own shadow. Even in physics (watch me get roasted by scientists as I write this) If you were to run faster than the speed of light, you couldn't outrun your shadow. You can run from your problems, but the minute you stop to take a breath, guess who's gonna be right behind you.
This quote from Pema Chodron sums it up:
"nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know
…nothing ever really attacks us except our own confusion. perhaps there is no solid obstacle except our own need to protect ourselves from being touched. maybe the only enemy is that we don’t like the way reality is now and therefore wish it would go away fast. but what we find as practitioners is that nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.
if we run a hundred miles an hour to the other end of the continent in order to get away from the obstacle, we find the very same problem waiting for us when we arrive. it just keeps returning with new names, forms, manifestations until we learn whatever it has to teach us about where we are separating ourselves from reality, how we are pulling back instead of opening up, closing down instead of allowing ourselves to experience fully whatever we encounter, without hesitating or retreating into ourselves."
Thank you for reading this! This experience has been so challenging AND nourishing.
Stay curious
M(:
M(:
