Ancestral cries echoing from beyond the veil, “Turn this way, not that way!… Why doesn’t she listen, why has she forgotten us? The Sacred Mountain, you must find her, her essence is within you.”
These words clung to her dreams as she stirred from her sleep. She peeked out from under her blankets to witness the morning sun cresting over the mountain top.
She stuck a toe out to check the temperature and shivered. It was cold and down in the valley below the mists had rolled in, blanketing the land in mystery.
She had been away from home for weeks – setting out on this adventure to spice up her life, which felt flat at best. Her friends thought she was crazy, why not a resort on a beach? Why not go sailing on a yacht?
She couldn’t tell them the truth. She couldn’t tell them about her lingering dreams that woke her at night and whispered to her throughout the day.
She needed to find the Sacred Mountain.
So she pulled out travel books and surfed the net until she had found it. Her stomach had lurched when she saw it. The Valley of the Queens, Sacred Mountain in Peru. This was it – this is where she needed to go to figure things out.
She looked over to where a morning fire was already crackling, her guide up at dawn getting the morning tea and meal going. She gingerly crawled out of her cozy nest and stretched her aching body.
This was it, today they would reach the highest point and reach the Valley of the Queens. So far the journey had been fascinating, laborious and exhausting. Hardly enlightening though, more hard work than fun. So she was eager to see what awaited her at the top.
They ate and broke camp and began the last climb. The going was slow, but her body warmed and loosened up with the movement. The view, as usual, was extraordinary. After several hours her guide beckoned to her, they were here, just around the rock was the Valley of the Queens. Her heart skipped a beat, her stomach lurched. ‘Finally!’ she thought.
She took a deep breath and stepped forward and tripped. She fell hard, the earth slamming into her body, she screamed out as her knee hit something sharp. She lay unmoving as her guide came running back to her.
She felt more embarrassed than in pain, she rolled over and blood poured out of her knee. Her guide quickly cleaned it up and set her straight, telling her she would likely need stitches. ‘Great’, she thought, ‘this is the glory I get for making it to the top?’
She hobbled to her feet and limped around the corner. ‘Okay, here we go’, she said under her breath. Before her lay a beautiful luscious stretch of green meadow, fed by a crystalline water fall. Rainbows glimmered off of the spray as the water hit the rocks below.
The Valley of the Queens – it was amazing – but it was no more awe-inspiring than what she had already seen, there was nothing particularly special about this place. She waited. Nothing happened. No deep stirring inside, no pull. ‘This is it?’ she thought.
Her head and knee throbbed. She was thirsty and disappointed, her ego bruised. The guide laid down a blanket and checked on her wounds. He encouraged her to rest, he could sense that she needed some space and told her he would go see about collecting some wildflowers for tea.
She lay back and tried to let the warm sun soothe her. ‘What the heck am I doing here? What did I expect I would find up here? I should’ve just gone to the beach.’ She closed her eyes to rest.
But she couldn’t relax. ‘Now what? I just go home to the same old same old?’ She sat back up and watched her guide walking towards the waterfall. He filled up his canister and walked back to her.
She looked up at his smiling face as he handed her the water. ‘Here’, he said, ‘drink, her essence is within you’. At these words chills went up and down her spine, the hair on the back of her neck stood on end.
She looked around her. Her essence is within you. With this reflection she took in the beauty all around her. She felt the cool pure water on her lips. She burst out laughing now understanding the cosmic joke.
The guide helped her stand back up, his eyes twinkling, having witnessed this journey in others before. She laughed again and opened her arms wide and shouted as loud as she could: “I am the Sacred Mountain, I am the Valley of the Queens!”
With this she knew that what was stirring in her dreams, what was beckoning her was not this far off distant place, but it was her own spirit, pulsing within her, ready to awaken and do with as she pleased.
She looked down at her bruised and cut knee, grateful now to have this physical reminder. She could create whatever life she desired – she only needed to look inside herself. ‘And maybe, she thought as she shook her head, ‘scaling the Sacred Mountain within doesn’t need to be quite so physically painful and hard’.
With that she relaxed back down on the grass to gaze up at the sky and the wonder of the beauty reflected all around her. As she dozed off she heard these words:
‘The Sacred Mountain waits for you with each breath, she beckons from the shadows and leaves traces in the most obscure places. You must be ready and you must be willing to wake up, look around you – and listen.”
