This is the story about a single woman, a book and a range of mountains.
The woman is myself, Molly Turner, fresh out of a women's hostel where I'd spent almost
two years getting over a bad marriage to a man who was a victim of drink and drugs.
To my amazement, one morning in 1996, I woke up in the hostel, battered and bruised,
again. That much was familiar. But I only learned later that my good friend, Michelle
James and her man had pulled me out of being a punch bag for the last time. The hostel had
taken me in, thank God, and there I lived until I was able to get some kind of perspective
back into my life, pretty much for the first time ever. So that's a sketch of my life.
More later.
Before I tell you about the book that helped me so much, you have to understand that
living and loving a man who beats on you every day of your life is so exhausting.
Mentally, physically and emotionally, I was shattered and broken in so many ways. For
hours on end, I'd sit and stare, until someone would come up to me and talk. To describe
this in another way, there were no words in my thoughts, just a dumb numbing blank. A
complete nothingness.
Unless you've been there, it's hard to explain it. But it always hurts, like the
deepest loss imaginable, but you never know quite what it is that's gone.
So when my friend Michelle gave me a book on Sacred Mountains, I was pleased to get it.
It looked great, but why? Why mountains? I don't climb. Never have. And I don't plan to.
Even now.
"Just read it", Michelle told me, with the smile I've learned to recognize as
deep wisdom. Michelle has a habit of doing just the right thing at the right time.
"Read it, and let it move you."
So I looked at the pictures, and then began to read a book that literally lifted me away from blank voids and numbing wordlessness, onto a pathway that's given me great things in my life. The book is "Sacred Mountains: Ancient Wisdom and Modern Meanings". The man I have to thank is the author, Adrian Cooper.
Slowly I began to read about these beautiful peaks and summits that I'd never visited,
but which formed new scenes in my mind - in a mind more used to being kicked and punched
and shouted at, at any time of the day or night. Even being woken up and finding myself
used as a punch bag, to this. Breathtaking ice walls. Glistening, golden rock and hill
sides with pure air
and green grass.
And poetry. Poetry, a subject I loved at school, but which I'd never
studied since I was too small to be of interest to any one. But now I was reading the
translated words of Chinese poets telling me about journeys through the clouds. Native
Americans telling me about places which are a precious refuge. Africans too, loving their
high pathways.
I was beginning to see why Michelle had bought the book for me. I was
facing up to some huge mountains in my life. All kinds of recovery. And physical healing
was only a part of it. There was a lot of emotional healing I needed too. And Adrian
Cooper's book was the guide manual that Michelle wanted me to study to get me through it.
Like a 'Life Skills 101' course!
But there is more than poetry in Sacred Mountains. There are women, and
men too, from the 1990s, who have been through grief and anxiety and pain, but who also
went out to their local mountains and watched and listened, patiently. Patiently learning
from these beautiful places. Learning to be patiently at one with the wild. Patiently
wild.
So I followed their example. When I was half way through the book, and
unable to put it down, and unable to stop thinking about it, Michelle and Ken drove me out
to the Sierra Nevada's, a four hour drive away from the city (San Francisco). My feet and
legs were still aching from the past, so walking wasn't the best idea. But we drove up
toward the Mariposa Grove so I could get out and look down the Yosemite Valley. Learning
my first lesson on watching the summits patiently.
To my shame, I broke down and cried. I cried and cried, while Michelle
held me like the good friend she is. It was so over- whelmingly beautiful. It was
soul-changingly beautiful. It was huge and ancient. And forgotten. But it had to be
watched patiently. Nothing there could be rushed. To rush is an insult to the mountains.
So always be patient. It's worth it in the end.
How can we possibly be cruel to anyone when there is beauty of this kind
on the same planet we share? How could anyone ignore children when there is the need to
show them mountains, and rare pathways, and glaciers, and glorious skies. Skies that
change so fast toward the end of day you can't imagine the designs you'll see next.
Patiently learning to act as a humble, blessed
witness to the greatest show on earth. Thousands of feet high, clouds arching above
mountain peaks that warm to their touch. And all the time, even when you don't know it,
they're lighting fires in your mind.
And yes, I cried again on the way back too. Like a child on the back
seat, leaning my head on Michelle's shoulder, sobbing for the beauty I had been shown - by
a good friend and a truly great author.
Over the next weeks I finished Adrian Cooper's book and started on his
next. And Michelle and Ken took me out to the Sierras every weekend. When my feet and legs
got better, our hikes got longer. And what discoveries we made! Don't expect this story to
turn into a geography lesson, because I don't remember all the place names. But I also
don't think the names matter too
much. It's their mystery that left their mark the most. Pure beauty. Honesty. Honest
places - rugged, broken with the millennia, but proud to share what they have. Ready to
risk being seen in their broken but mighty grandeur.
We discovered water falls that seemed to come down at us from heaven. And the people we
met. Smiling hikers from all over the world led to this place by the power of these
ancient mountains. Travelers who'd saved for years on end to be here, some of them on
once-in-a-life-time visits. Golden Wedding Anniversaries. A need to be here, all of which
I can understand now.
If I'd been shown this story before I'd read Adrian Cooper's book, I'm
not sure it would have interested me. At that time, mountains, and so much else, had next
to no meaning in any part of my life. Punch bags don't often take an interest in their
environment, believe me! But now things are different.
We all have our mountains to climb. And that's what the book proved to me. Some of the
women who tell their stories in "Sacred Mountains: Ancient Wisdom and Modern
Meanings," have lived in situations beyond despair. Men have lived with grief too. So
many reasons to travel to these peaks, but they all found healing when they got themselves
out to the mountains,
learning to watch and listen to their teaching patiently. Always, the secret is patience.
So now I understand mountains aren't the exclusive preserve of mountaineers. Mountains are
ours. They can be teachers to us all. Everyone. Especially the battered and bruised. All
the victims of life can come to these mighty masters of time and find what they need.
So this is the story I wanted to share, about one woman, a miraculous book, and some
equally miraculous mountains. And Michelle. As you may have guessed, I've had a lot of
help to put this story together. So thank you again Michelle, Ken, Matthew, Gwen, Artie
and Laura, you were there when I needed you most.
Lots of love to you all,
Molly Turner
BirthQuake: The Journey to Wholeness
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