Casi Cielo, Almost Heaven

The Stone Sentinel, Aconcagua, scrapes past the clouds and into the heavens above at almost 7,000 meters.

I made some mildly calculated decision to climb his back a few years ago, even though I knew it would be an impossible feat given the restraints of my job.

I didn’t know it then, but climbing Aconcagua meant much more than some arbitrary physical feat. It meant freedom and pure connection with self.

And that is exactly what I got.

What I once thought was a an endeavor to summit the highest mountain in the Americas turned into the greatest act of self acceptance I could gift myself.

I wound my way through the dry, red, striated mountains of the Andes over the course of 14 days. Through a wise and sensible plan of acclimating from sea level to well beyond 6000 meters, or 22,000+ feet, I connected so intimately with my body and somehow evaded el pinche sorroche, my self-dubbed form of altitude sickness that involves the most debilitating of symptoms.

At each 1,000 meter gain of elevation, I pushed my body, nourished it with water, respected its limited ability to eat, and I sleep, whenever and for as long as I could. It wasn’t my first rodeo with high altitude and I knew how my body responded to low levels of oxygen.

I respected by body, mind, spirit, & soul in a way that I never had before. It was a pure act of self love

I walked day in and day out, through the Argentinean Andean mountains, & I looked out and I looked up, and as I beheld the grandeur all around, soft tears told me I made it.

There’s a certain air of complete freedom that finds you when you’re smack in the middle of the world, betwixt its wildness and my own. It’s a feeling that I’m exactly where I need to be, void of obligations and responsibilities, in a place where worries don’t exist.

Through this deep connection with source, I am reminded that I am not chasing an arbitrary mountain summit, I am chasing that feeling of liberation and pure joy that I made my dreams come true.

And, so, at about 6600 meters of elevation, at a particularly ludicrous ascent up the snowy traverse, I take 4 steps up and then take a much needed break.

Then, I look up, I look down, and then I look all around.

It’s a beautiful place to rest.

I put down my ego and my heavy pack and I sit on the steep incline of the mountain. The rocks are jagged, the air whips around me, but yet I feel so content and so comfortable and so at peace.

The mountain top is but 300 meters above but to me, I’ve already reached heaven. I’ve been walking in its presence since day 1.

I lean back, take a deep breath in and give a rampage of gratitude for all that I’ve walked, all that I’ve climbed, all that I’m am, and all that I’ve loved.

I promised myself that world and here I am beholding it expanding outward forever and ever in all directions before me.

I promised myself I’d chase deep, vibrant emotions and there I am feeling an unparalleled level of elation for all that is and all that is yet to be.

And those two promises have made all the difference in the world.