AT THE TRAILHEAD

The trailhead is such a magnificent moment, carrying its own species of energy. It is a threshold of sorts—the threshold into the unknown. A crossing from one world to another.

An excitement and curiosity runs the blood hot regardless of the weather. What beauties and mysteries does the trail hold? How will this rewild me, what aspects of myself will the mountain help me re-member, reclaim?

The threshold also marks our trepidations, our fears, for we know we will be changed by the trail, by the mountain—we will return a different person. With new gifts, new perspectives, yes, but also perhaps new scratches and bruises.

The trail may stretch us into a different shape.

Truth be told, it is a risk to set off into the unknown. Am I up for climbing this mountain? This new project? This Mystery? Is my body capable? Is my psyche rooted? Am I prepared? What about my old life, habits, patterns—which of those will the mountain kill off? They may be silly habits and patterns and ways of seeing, but they are MY cute and pathetic habits and patterns and ways of seeing. They are comfortable.

But you cross anyway, because you’re not going for just comfort, but for Life, your Whole Self, because everything up to this point has prepared you for the journey. You may not know what is around the next switchback, but you know you will greet it with all you have—you are on the right path. It might not be THEIR path, but it is YOURS.

The paradox is that you already aren’t the same person that is taking that first step. And yet there’s something about enacting the visceral visitation of each paw print along the path that gets that truth in you down in your bloods and bones.

So You step from the trailhead onto the trail, with dedicated feet and an eager heart.