My sister invited me to go hiking with her and her boyfriend, a challenging climb on any day at Mount Si.
We pulled into the park around Mount Si, part of Washington State’s Cascades, everything blanketed with a light two inches of snow. Interesting, I thought . . . there was little to no snow back at her house in Seattle. The way the light glimmered from the snow on the trees was beautiful. We packed our backpacks with food, water, a blanket -- all the usual things for a normal afternoon of hiking -- and set out on our way away from the car and up the beginning trail of the mountain.
Almost immediately, I began noticing that I was slip-sliding on the snow-covered trails up the flatter base of the mountain. I looked in front of me to see that my sister and her boyfriend seemed to be doing just fine, their boots gripping the ground below the snow much better than my hiking shoes. I stopped to look at the bottom of my shoes, the tread nearly worn down to nothing. We had a long way to go to get to the top, at least two hours. Hikers passing us had trekking poles, some even had crampons on their boots. The climb was getting steeper with every step. I could feel the anxiety rising in my guts. What was I going to do?
We had paused for a rest, and just as I admitted within my own self that I needed help, the perfect hiking stick could be found to my left. I gratefully picked it up and soon was leading the pack.
The movement and the power with the stick was familiar, one of those a-ha sensations of goodness, of ease. When I dug the stick into the ground in front of me to claim some grip with my feet on the icy snow, I let the stick remain in that spot as I passed it and pushed into that same spot on the ground to feel the propulsion from the rear -- just as we do with our hand on a chair in Water Carrier’s Walk #2 and eventually with trekking poles in Walk for Life. Not only was I no longer needing to worry about my shoes on the icy snow, I was finding my posture as I walked, finding the power of the arm-swing to propel me forward with power and ease.
I reached the top of the mountain long before my co-hikers and enjoyed the view, amazed by the birds there eating right out of my hands.
Who would have thought Bones for Life would be so helpful in a dangerous situation in which I had found myself!
Brian Shircliff
Bones for Life Teacher-in-Training
Cincinnati, OH (U.S.A.)
P.S. And by the way, from the amazing view at the top of the mountain, Seattle looks like Oz, a tiny principality in this massive valley between mountain ranges. But the real Wizard that day, I discovered, is within us when we know how to work with our body, provide some choices, and trust its inner (neurological) wisdom.
Read the entire story here: http://www.vitalitycincinnati.org
