Braving the Wilderness

Author: Regina Gee 

(Study abroad student from the University of Pittsburgh) 

Where I come from, the rocks making the mountains are over one billion years old. The mountains run roughly north to south and determine which rivers flow to the Atlantic Ocean and which go to the Pacific. They form the continental divide and were formative in the creation of the person I became, in helping to make me a mountain person.   

To borrow the words of Victoria Erickson, 

When you’re a mountain person, you understand the brilliance & beauty of contradiction. The way the land can be your greatest teacher. How something can be both grounding yet elevating, intoxicating yet soothing, wild yet serene, intensely primal yet patient, and cycling yet predictable within shifts & rhythms. Mountains keep us on edge yet wrap us in the sensation of safety all at once.

Growing up in the Rockies helped to show me the majesty and ‘home’ I found in the Himalayas. And my time in the Himalayas could not have embodied this quote more. I grew up at elevation but have been going to school in the flatter lands of Pennsylvania the last three years. Arriving in Mussoorie tested me physically first, reminding me of the oxygen content on mountain air, but winding my way up to the lower Himalaya reminded me where my lifeblood flows. I was on the literal opposite side of the world geographically, but I quickly found myself at the edges of my understanding of the world and my place in it. I lived out a beautiful contradiction – I settled within myself in the midst of the mythic, intense, and dynamic land of folded earth around me. 

Imagine standing with a quarter-inch of your boots hanging off the edge of the steep, breath dragging a bit in your throat, lungs pressing into your ribcage with the slight burn of exertion. Hands a little stiff from swinging at your sides on the hike as you grab at the straps to your pack. You resettle your pack on your back, the bruises on your hips protesting at first then settling into the shift. Your hair is blown loose, and you tuck it behind your ear as you look out upon a landscape so rugged and beautiful, so breathtaking, thought-provoking… you breathe in – the crisp air finding its way into your lungs, into your capillaries, into your blood, into your muscle, into your bones. Yes, you stand there, feeling infinitesimally small in the land of the beautiful contradiction, and yet so integral, capable, and oh so brave. The mountains challenge you, show you how the very ground beneath your feet moves, collides, crumples, lifts and scrape the sky. 

Brené Brown talks about braving the wilderness – about being courageous, vulnerable, and authentic in your life and showing up. She talks about becoming the wilderness, and it was my time in the mountains of northern India that allowed me to step into the wilderness, absorb the strength of courage born of vulnerability, and to show up for my life. She says, "The mark of a wild heart is living out the paradox of love in our lives. It’s the ability to be tough & tender, excited & scared, brave & afraid – all in the same moment. It’s showing up in our vulnerability and our courage, being both fierce and kind.” 

I am part of this wild heart club, and it was the Himalayas that showed me how to thrive in the contradictions and to be more because of it.