Keep going!

I saw a picture a bit like this on Facebook this morning (only it was pointing up a mountain) and found it touched me surprisingly deeply as I realised I am really quite tired. And I had several other quick realisations flash through my mind along with the, 'Oh heck, yes, I am tired from the feeling of keeping on keeping on keeping on...' I also had, ‘How far to the top now?’ And, 'Maybe I am not headed in the right direction? And, ‘Why is this feeling so hard?’ And then, 'Oh, of course....!' The thing is, I have been headed up a mountain for some time - many years in fact - yet finally reached the top of it three years ago, gratefully and delightedly. And I could suddenly see clearly that I now am doing the next necessary thing; coming down this mountainside in order to go up the next one. Even if all your peaks are high in the clouds, you have to come down from one in order to ascend to the next, let alone if you are now coming down to be ‘home’ for a bit, and to make plans for your next expedition.

The only way is down now....

Why do I say down is harder? Well, I learned this painfully, and slightly embarrassingly, about 5 years ago. Having gone a day early to the Alexander Technique Congress in Lugano in Switzerland, I took the funicular railway to the top of a 1000m mountain overlooking Lake Lugano, intending to walk down. Not big by mountain standards, and being summer not covered in snow, it was going to be easy; after all, the hotel owner had said so, and ‘just don’t wear party shoes’! Hot sunny day, spirits high from admiring the view from the top, I set off down the winding shallow steps which I intended to count. At about 750 I gave up the counting and started the self-motivation. After about 2 hours I came to a clearing where I could see the turquoise lake below me - the ferryboats on it like tiny dots; I was still as high as in an aeroplane! Somewhat daunted I wondered about going back up and taking the funicular down, but I didn’t want to give in; this was downhill! So I carried on, and when I finally - another 2 hours later - came to the bottom, I had an surprisingly elated sense of achievement. Of course, when I told my ‘mountain experienced’ friends the tale, they explained how it is much, much harder on the legs to descend than ascend. I was ready to agree wholeheartedly as I hobbled around the Congress on day one; a ‘poised’ teacher of nearly 30 years who had to actually (quite true) go down the five steps to the ladies’ loo on her bottom because I could not do it on my feet! Four days later, after the general afternoon-off from Congress, I knew exactly who had spent the time doing the same ‘walk’ as me, as I helped them down the same steps on their bottoms!

So I am grateful for this morning's picture which reminded me that we need to see this sign on the way down, too - in fact on any path, including one following a time of dreams, effort, and achievement. On the path between goals and dreams, on the path back home. Yes, “The journey up may be hard, but the best view is from the top” is a wise saying, but believe me, the view of that lake at eye-level was just as good, if not better! Suddenly I knew, after seeing the picture this morning, that the reason the path currently feels hard is because I have been, in effect, walking down that 'achieved mountain' backwards!

I have been going back down but still facing the peak I have looked at for so long, despite having attained it, and also because I have been forgetting that ‘down’ has as much merit as ‘up'. Out of pure habit (oh dear!) I have forgotten to stop, wake up fully to the now, and change my view! Oh, how much easier it is to walk facing the way I am going, the way down whilst clarifying my plans for the next peak!! 

No matter which way you are pointing, let's bless up, and bless down, and let’s also bless all the bits in the middle; all of them with great big ‘Keep Going’ signs!