In the year 2000 Tho and me took a 9 month sabbatical!
It was one of our wisest decisions ever! We just stopped EVERYTHING and went into the mountains, to come back to ourselves, to remember our motivations in life, see
each other a NEW, to meditate together, to be fully present to ourselves and to each other.
During this period we wrote each other one letter every day,
One of these letters came into my mind this morning. It's title was: the mountain
I have been in Bhutan experiencing the mountains and now by the ocean, ...:
Every moment the miracle of transformation is happening and yet nothing ever changes.
Do you remember our conversation this morning?
The mountains.
Never ever have there been so stable, so solid, so long lasting beings like the mountains.
They are firm, solid, strong and unchanging. Yet we both know, they are in constant movement and transformation. Living with the mountains one realizes the incredible
graceful movement that is in them. You just have to walk a few hundred meters and a mountain can look so different that you almost can not recognize it.
The forms are wondrous and dynamic, in, out, round, angular, soft, violent, up and down…Sometimes
it feels like walking in a moving sea! The perspectives change constantly and so often one is so surprised by the distances and the relief as they are so unexpected. This is why one should never make a short cut in the mountains.
You should always believe
the wisdom of the old paths that sometimes look as if making a detour, but that will bring you safely to the peak. If you try to go the short way, choosing the straight line that you can figure out through looking at the goal, you most probably will be quite
surprised, finding yourself in front of an unforeseen abyss or steep cliff.
And now look at the sea. Never ever has there been an as moving, as flexible, constantly changing being as the sea!
Nothing is solid, nothing is firm, nothing is stable.
Yet look at the incredible oneness, this incredible force holding it all together. From where ever you look, you will see the same constant horizon, the same constant movement of the waves. The deep sea holds in itself a power of unchanging solidity. I wonder
what a sailor would say about the distances…I imagine being out, far out on the ocean, looking at the compass, at the stars and knowing if I follow this direction firmly I will arrive at my goal.