(Dedicated to the women and men who marched for human rights and to those who believe in the power of love and the spirit of human potential.) From my blog at aliciamrodriguez dot com

FIRST THERE IS A MOUNTAIN.

But you don’t know it.

You don’t even see it.

At first you stumble around hitting your head, stubbing your toes, tripping over yourself as you try to find a path.

Then one day you notice the mountain and you notice that you are at the bottom of that mountain. Through the clouds you can barely distinguish a light shining at the peak. You know that someone is there waiting for you. Everything in you knows this.

AND YOU BEGIN TO CLIMB.

With each step forward you clear a path. As you climb you experience heartbreak, longing, confidence, strength, grief, joy. As you move up the mountain you reconnect with the whole of your life.

You begin to ask new questions, questions you never thought of asking before. What is this teaching me? What do I not see? What is possible that was impossible before?

You hear yourself say things you never thought you would say. You feel things you never thought you would feel. You see things in ways you never saw before. You begin to relate to life in a completely different way.

You discover that you are more than your thoughts, that you are stronger than you believed. As you climb the mountain you rewrite your story, expanding it, integrating all of your life experience into a new narrative.

Every once in a while you pause to rest and enjoy the view. You notice you have come a ways up the mountain but not as far as you had thought. You start climbing again, one foot in front of the other, one step then another then another as you move up the mountain.

AGAIN YOU PAUSE.

You appreciate the view and you know you still haven’t come as far as you had hoped.

You turn to face the peak where you can see the light. It is familiar, like a distant memory calling to you. You know that your quest is to join with that light.

GRADUALLY YOU STOP PAYING ATTENTION TO WHERE YOU ARE ON THE MOUNTAIN.

It no longer matters.

You just keep climbing.

Because really, you don’t know if you will ever reach the peak.

What matters are the journey and the faith to go on; to believe that the possibility of reaching the peak is and always has been at hand.

AND SO YOU CLIMB.