Earth Acupuncture by Gail Reichstein Rex

Author:Gail Reichstein Rex
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Spirituality/Gaia
Publisher: Inner Traditions/Bear & Company
Published: 2016-01-28T16:00:00+00:00

11

Pilgrimage

After the county hearings on Indian Point, I was depressed. Though I had been elated only days before, proud of the way I’d recognized Dunderberg Mountain as the genius loci of the region, I no longer saw how anything could combat the political and economic strength that Entergy wielded. The hearings had made clear how hard the corporate owners of Indian Point would fight to keep the plant open. They had a lot of money and a lot of strategists to help them tilt the public debate in their direction; they could outspend and outfox those who hoped for cleaner energy without even straining.

In contrast to these forces, my puny voice seemed inadequate, and my metaphysical efforts felt almost ridiculous. I didn’t see how my work could make a whit of difference to the politicians or the frightened Entergy employees or the determined Entergy executives. Perhaps I needed to rethink my plans, or give up and move away. . . .

I drifted aimlessly through the next few weeks. I had lost faith in my project and had no enthusiasm for pursuing any more Indian Point adventures. I went to work and came home and mourned my helplessness. After a few weeks of my silence, James called to wonder where I’d been. When I told him about my low mood, he was not surprised—in fact he’d been depressed as well, though by different circumstances. In James’s case, he’d learned that the financing for his new coffee shop was falling through. Feeling powerless to persuade the banking executives of the merits of his business plan, he grew angry and found his frustration exploding into his marriage. He reeled between depression and rage and felt that our relationship to the land and Dunderberg was pointless.

Discussing our separate stresses, James and I noticed that we both felt outmatched, faced with obstacles much larger than we were. We both had wondered in the past week whether we ought to give up—on the stone circle, on the coffee shop, on trying to make even a small difference in a giant world. James pointed out that we’d each come to a bump in the road—“or a mountain, I guess you could call it. And we need to decide for ourselves whether we’re going to climb it, or turn around and forget it.”

I thought of the actual mountain we had so recently climbed, and the weeks of preparation we had gone through to get there. Mountains are well-worn metaphors for difficult emotional terrain—clichés, really. But what if the mountain was more than just a metaphor? Maybe our journey to the mountain had engaged some deeper parts of ourselves that now needed attention. Like walking a labyrinth or a medicine wheel, perhaps the very act of climbing a mountain changes something inside of us.

In China and Tibet, some mountains are sacred. They are sites of holy pilgrimage that subtly alter the people who climb them. One of my favorite authors, Gretel Ehrlich, described mountain pilgrimages in her book Questions

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