alpine wander:lust
J U L Y 2 6 , 2 0 1 6
what medicine does your heart yearn for? what transmissions are you here to receive/ to give?
me? give me the mountains.
humble me; make me feel tiny
so i can remember
how unfathomably big and beautiful life is.
my husband and i leave our children behind in the loving arms of tag-teaming grandparents (#blessed) and embark on a pilgrimage to the top of the world: hiking the alps.
big #mountainmedicine
my favorite way to spend a day is hiking in the wild. #bliss
i’ve been infatuated with hiking stories / trail-tales for years. i adore the books wild, a walk in the woods, thru-hiking will break your heart .. i listen to podcast episodes with avid hikers and am inspired by films of people who have wandered into the wild and not come back out again.. (see: into the wild, arctic daughter, grizzly man, the alpinist, etc) people who make a life with their bare hands and the natural resources around them. survivors. thrivers. #inspired
so we set out to hike the tmb :: a 10-day, 100-mile trail that circles the mont blanc massif through france, italy and switzerland, with 8,500 feet of elevation gain / loss.
we’ve planned for months, but just like any big life-changing journey (see: becoming a parent, starting a business, plunging headfirst into psychedelic mystery), we don’t truly know what we’ve gotten ourselves into until we’re in it.
our tour is :: paris > lyon > chamonix > tmb > southern italy/france > provence
we spend the first few days boppin around paris, walking til our feet hurt, mesmerized by holy cathedrals and heavenly food, immersed in a giddy, jet-lagged daze of romance and awe.
wandering cobblestone streets, marveling at art and architecture, strolling along the seine. #lifeisgood
we rent a car from the louvre and exiting the parking garage is like baptism by fire (parisian roundabouts are intennnnse).
i’m so lucky my husband is a roadwarrior. he’s driven a dozen different vehicles in a dozen different countries, from tiny mopeds and eurocars to 30-foot semi-trucks and everything in between – from the right to the left side of the road, up rocky mountainsides without any road at all, through deserts and blizzards and rainstorms without roofs. he was born a ramblin’ man. 🙌🚙🏔
we drive to lyon, where we wander the streets for a day, and experience sigur ros live in an ancient roman amphitheater #transcendence #synchonicity dropped the tickets in my lap at the last minute
we plan to stay the night in lyon before setting off into the mountains, but our accommodations fall through at the last minute (10pm) so we decide to make the 2.5 hour drive into the alps in the dark and sleep in our car when we get there #nomads.
we roll into chamonix in the pitch black of midnight and by some stroke of luck the first inn door we knock on is answered by a sweet old man who welcomes us and puts us up in a room for the next couple of nights.
we sleep deeply, and when we wake we can’t believe our eyes.
where last night there was a sky of black, now stands a 360* mountain range illuminated by the morning sun… towering so high and mighty, it appears the tips of the peaks could touch over the tops of our heads. #soulland
perhaps the most beautiful place on earth.
animism is the belief that everything in nature has a soul -- its own special place and unique energetic signature.
connection with that soul unlocks its medicine // our own capacity to discover, expand and express those qualities in our own lives.
mountains give me clear, far-seeing vision. they uplift me // an inner ascent. they raise me closer to the light of the sun, transport me closer to heaven. the teach me that the most beautiful views are often in hard-to-reach places 🏔👁🙌🦅
#humbled on high ground. 🛐🙏 we walk through the town as in a lucid dream, reverent and amazed. we linger over breakfast before setting out to buy last minute supplies for the journey.
we wash our clothes at a laundromat, study the trail maps while we wait for them to dry. spark up conversation with a couple nice men who just completed their journey. they attempted it 6 times prior before finally being able to complete it (a report we’ve heard from many different groups of people). sometimes the mountain just has different plans.
when they discover we don’t have hiking poles, they insist on giving us theirs as a gift. “can’t hike the tmb without poles” they tell us. we gratefully accept, but i don’t really intend to use them.
it isn’t until day 2, after we’ve been utterly obliterated by our first full day on the trail, that we whip those babies out and put them to good use. holy moly, the difference they make. i’m reminded of my yoga practice and the power of calling in physical support. so many people resist using props (blocks, bolsters), thinking they prevent depth, when they often create the support necessary to go deeper than ever before. #paradox
the herculean effort of the climb is counterbalanced by an unimaginably idyllic, fairy-tale like landscape. the wilderness is peaceful in a way we’ve never known. tiny cottages along the way are profoundly remote, quaint, dreamy –front yards filled with exploding rose bushes, raised garden beds and laundry lines blowing in the breeze. #dreamhome bunny rabbits and goats roam wild. eagles soar overhead. #visionary
we pass a towering glacier waterfall, pristine, pure, perfect. we wash ourselves and drink up.
we hike and camp for days, stopping in remote mountain towns along the way to refill our water bottles with the most pristine glacier water we’ve ever tasted, flowing fresh from spring fountains in the middle of the town square. we take in the crystal codes. we stop for occasional food, lager, and candlelit prayer in picturesque alpine churches. #soulfuel
eventually we encounter a trail closure and have to reroute to a tiny town at the base of the mountain. everything is closed and the buses are finished running for the day, but we meet a young couple in a bar who offer to drive us on to the next leg of the journey (once they’ve finished drinking their pint).
we cram into the back of their tiny car with our backpacks, techno music pumping, and race this way and that, speeding down winding mountain roads in the pitch black. eek.
the next morning pat injures his ankle (and i have a rash from my socks). we have to decide whether or not to continue. by the end of the day, pat’s leg is so bad he can barely walk, so we take a bus to the next town and check into an inn to reconvene.
the weather warns of a storm brewing, and the next leg of our trip is the most exposed / dangerous segment of the trail (the swiss alps are unforgiving. if you’re caught in a lightning storm – which are frequent - there’s virtually nowhere to seek shelter).
we decide to abandon the rest of the journey. my heart breaks. i spend the evening mourning the loss, but wake up excited to pivot. hello #gemini.
we decide to road trip down through italy, west along the mediterranean coast, and into provence.
we’ll try the tmb another time #oneattemptdown #fivetogo ?
we land in monplaisir:: a sweet little campsite just outside saint-rémy. we pitch our ultralight tent on a literal slab of rock, use our extra clothing as a cushion, but it barely helps. despite the hardness, we sleep incredibly well, a blanket of provincial stars shining through the open-air screen ceiling of our tent. we wake up with sore muscles and full hearts.
we rent bikes and spend the entire day riding through the french countryside :: we picnic, we pedal past fields of sunflowers and rows of lavender. we ride up steep hillsides to 12th-century clifftop castle villages where we buy our son a toy crossbow, and pat rides the rest of the day with it on his back.
a knight on his trusty steed 🚴♀️🏹
at night we take a nice long stroll through saint-remy to a darling italian restaurant. something about the astroturf and flowerboxes and tiny fenced-in yards gives me mad deja-vu - the strongest and longest i’ve ever felt it. i remember something about this place… it lingers around me all night.
we walk back to camp with full bellies and very happy hearts.
we make our way up through central france. pay an ungodly amount of toll money, but the road trip is so incredibly satiating. even the gas station food is mouth-watering, fresh, oftentimes local. pat eats baguette sandwiches to his heart’s content. we listen to music, roll the windows down and let our hair blow in the breeze. at a roundabout, a bee flies into pat’s shirt and stings him three times. #spiritmedicine
we return to paris to fly home. we miss our babies terribly. by the end, we pine for home. but two weeks alone in the wild with only each other?!. we treasure every drop. #bittersweet
freedom is so so so important to us.
feeling free to be ourselves, to wake each day feeling new and wondrous.
to do life our own way, letting our hearts lead the way, instead of to-do lists.
travel helps us place ourselves in the path of novelty, adventure, communion with this good gracious earth. to soften our responsibility/certainty and invoke a greater sense of carefree spontaneity, curiosity, receptivity.
to courageously say yes to life’s endless invitation.
the journey amplifies our spirits, enlarges our hearts, expands our minds//
creates spaciousness for connection, intimacy, new exploration of each other and the world.
👣✈️🕊🌲🥾🏕☀️🌩🪶🧀🍺🧦🎒🥖💖
we wander. we lust.
we give ourselves room to grow wild and free together.