The Road to K2, Lesson 4

Today’s lesson installment considers the idea that we can take so many cues from nature on how to handle challenge and make sense of our existence. In the case of Everest, and because I’m a mother to seven kids, I found myself taking motherhood cues from Earth’s “Mother Mountain”.

Lesson 4

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When you’re stuck, lost, or need some guidance, seek out lessons and support in nature.

Everest is the mother mountain on Mother Earth. As a mother of seven, I felt some powerful lessons during my journey to the summit of Everest. Being surrounded by such dramatic and ancient landscape, one is almost forced into profound reflection!

At the top, I considered that the mountain and earth are very much physically here. That sounds obvious, and it is, but the subtext is that they take up exactly the contours of their space, are always the same, don’t apologize, and don’t ask for forgiveness. They just do “them” consistently, every day in every way. Weather happens on top of them and it may change the surface some, but it doesn’t change the fact that Mt. Everest is Mt. Everest and Mother Earth is Mother Earth. 

We humans can litter, climb, cry, scream in joy while on Everest and Earth. Whatever we do is on the surface and whatever is happening is happening on the surface. Yet still, what we do doesn’t change who they are and what they are for our world.  

This idea made me reflect on me…

I am a mom. 

No matter where I am or what is going on in the noisy world we live in, my most important job is consistently to be a mom.

The weather of life may perhaps change me a little here and there, but not the core of me. 

For my kids, the consistency of me being me, of witnessing me being the strong stable force of mother for them, in turn allows them to see that inside of them, too. They can witness how will happen, but we are still present, here, and strong. 

This witnessing of presence and consistency helped me reconnect to the importance of being strong, stable, and consistent here and now. No matter what we go through or what storms we weather, we are still here and important in our main roles. Teaching my kids that when the weather changes, we don’t have to is valuable is so many ways. Money can come and go. Friends can come and go. Our talents can fade, or we can take on new passions, but we still are who we are at our core.