Into the Mountains

A long road, barren, unknown to most, shown to me by a stranger.

I follow its path as it winds away from civilization, even the farm houses with their sheep and goats.

The road leads into he mountains. Mountains that few people, if any, have explored. it's said that people who go to the mountains never return, but it is considered to be a happy ending, full of mystery and wonder.

I seek the mountains. For solitude, for understanding, perhaps even enlightenment. When the stranger tells me of the road, I am not frightened. I am not even "intrigued." I find in myself a deep longing to go there, to lose myself in the mists. The others could only approach on foot, doomed to lose themselves in the trees before ever passing over. They lacked the will or means. They lacked the proper understanding.

Me? I was born for this. It is one of my reasons for being; a task that I must accomplish. I do not intend on returning. I do not want to die, I do not want to be gone. But I know deep inside, so deep that it resonates in my bones, that I, or this world, will be inexorably changed. I do not fear this. It is a compulsion, and instinct that I must follow.

What do I seek? I do not seek. There is an Answer in the mountains. An answer to which I do not know the question. I only know that it is there, and that I must find it and allow it to do its work.

The road is long. I do not walk it, for those that walk to the mountain never find their way. I follow the road. It is white sand in tall, emerald grass, through plains and over rolling hills. There are no people. There are no buildings. There is no life other than the grass, and all is silent except the wind in my ears and the rustling of the grass below. As I journey, I only see the White Road and the green grass plains, stretching along in misty nothingness, perhaps stretching to infinity.

I rise higher and break through the mist to find myself drifting above the foothills of the Mountain. They are a rich, lush green. The White Road is not visible as it passes between the final two foothills. From between them rises a mist that climbs up the face of the mountain.

The Mountain itself is mystery incarnate. It is wondrous and beautiful, covered in pristine trees that have never been touched by man. They create an ambient mist that wafts off of the mountain in tendrils before dissipating into the air. The Mountain is ridged and wrinkled, as if water flows freely down its sides, and from those ridges drift lazy sheets of mist.

I feel a crushing sense of mystery and awe. She is a pillar of grace, of absolution. She is not anything, she does nothing, she simply... is. She does not speak, yet all the words in the world could never describe what she says. Words falter before her. They fail utterly.

She does not watch, she sees. She does not do, she withstands. She is the great I Am, the answer to the question I didn't even know I had been asking.

I had prayed, even pleaded, my soul torn asunder from the pain of it, from the desperation. One does not know their own wretched state until seen in the eyes of the Mountain. But pleads and prayers do not reach the mountain. Only questions reach her ears.

She withstood me while I railed against all that she is, but when I asked, she answered. Total absolution, and utter certainty. I am changed. I have been answered.