Ever felt like you really needed to take a break from your life? Well, I was lucky enough to do just that in 2021. I quit my job, prepped for a month and left with my friend in a small Toyota voxy van, off to the south island, the great mountains and four months of hiking. I was quite scared to start with, my mind kept coming back to the same thoughts “your body can’t take this, you haven’t had this much exercise in years, your Achilles tendon and back problems will flare up, your energy levels aren’t good enough yet, you were starting to do pretty well there with your routine, garden and healthy diet, are you sure you can leave all this behind?”. I’m sure anyone who’s struggled with their health can relate to this, not to mention the worry of being able to find healthy food to eat while on the road and especially while hiking. I could already imagine myself: “I really need to bring a couple of oranges, lemons, celery stalks and a bunch of spinach up this mountain”. That just would not do. On the other side, I felt like this trip was really special: it was time for me to feel free. My friend and I made our intentions clear for the trip: we both wanted to use the time and the immersion in nature to deeply connect inwards and transform ourselves for the better. Life on the road is so simple: get up, take care of basic needs, travel, enjoy, sleep and repeat. Everything takes more time, cooking in a mini kitchen every day, constant resupplying of food, planning the next hike, packing and unpacking. The first hike, the Heaphy track was actual torture for me; I had not worn in my new shoes properly and anxiously carried too much food. The beauty of the forest, nikau plams, long stretches of beaches, friendly companionship and meeting some of the native fauna made up for it. Our next stop in the Nelson Lake District was much more pleasant for my feet and it marked the beginning of our true mountain experience. From then on, I lived and breathed for the ragged hillsides, the lakes nestled below, the sun rising and setting illuminating the peaks and the clouds, the vibrant colors, the immersion into cold waters and the cozy evenings recuperating with a snack and a book. I felt alive and purposeful, challenged and generously rewarded by sheer beauty and grandeur. Over hours and hours of walking in silence, the state of being present and in my heart lasted longer and longer, pain only serving to remind me of where my focus should be. My endurance improved, culminating with our ascension to Mueller hut. Climbing stairs and scrambling over steep rock faces for three hours, I arrived at the first plateau which opened to a 360 degree view of the mountains, the majestic Mt Cook and the valley below. I was facing snowy walls of a glacier, hearing avalanches thundering intermittently and my heart felt unrestrained and total awe for the magnificence of Nature (nature a capital ‘N’). I had felt this periodically when setting my eyes on the beauty of Nature we often encountered while hiking but at this moment, gazing around at Mt Cook, something in my heart woke up and created a feeling that was much stronger and potent. I felt I could stay in that moment forever, at peace inside and out. That a mountain could teach my heart to feel something so deep and beautiful still touches me deeply. Nature gives us so much; She is capable of nourishing our very souls. I learnt that when you discover something that gives you an incredible experience, hard to even put into words, then you have to do your best to hold onto it and to remember and relive this feeling in your heart. When I close my eyes, I can bring myself back to these mountains and feel again my heart activating. I don’t want to lose something this precious so I keep going into Nature every day, into the bush or my garden. I try to see Nature inside other people and inside myself. In my Yuan Qigong practice I bring this aliveness back into my heart as I move, breathe and relax. I know that this feeling lives inside of me, inside everyone and everything, like magic that lies ready to jump up into our lives. This is the gift I received from going on a journey with the intention of genuinely connecting with my heart, Nature and truly coming home to myself. If everyone on the earth could live with this awe and beauty inside of themselves, I’m sure everything would change and this is the path I have chosen to contribute to the bettering of the world. I love sharing this with others and seeing them transform from the inside out.
