The inner journey to to the top of Mt Donaldson, Tarkine

Phoenix writes:

I am panting with excited exertion.

My feet are pointers, picking their way along the track that goes ever upwards, my body follows along, my spirit is stirred.

Almost at the top of the mountain, I stop and rest.

I have been resting a lot on the 3 hour walk to the top of Mt Donaldson, a mountain near Corinna in the Tarkine where our eco-healing retreat resides for the first five days.

Steadily, slowly the track goes ever upwards, the pre-dawn light starting to reveal…

…something I had never seen before, even then the Vic High Country pales to what the Tarkine offers at dawn on top of Mt Donaldson.

When I reached the top, where a cairn rises, I forget to breath out for a moment as I take it all in.

The dawn light is unfurling a magnificent stage. Looking around the 360 degree views of wilderness, I sigh rapturoulsy.

Beautiful wilderness everywhere. Rolling out from me are the wild places of this Tarkine world and also of myself, I am rolling out, expanding, opening, every which way.

Trees, forests, grass, shrubs, mountains, valleys, rivers, clouds, me. I as part of all of this.

Misty clouds drift across other mountains, their peaks swathed in cloud, emerald then olive then darker greens then deep blue then lighter and lighter blues as they fade back, ever backwards, into the vast distance.
Yes vast.

Vaster then anything I had ever seen. Rivers meander lazily down mountains and glimmere in ravines.

Sweeping plains and dark patches hint teasingly in a Tolkein kinda way, at hidden places, brush across enormous valleys.

And the sky! The sky is endless, a great sky of many colours of blues and golden near the sun that is peeping over a mountain range and the horizons are further than endless.

Infinity at a glance.

A lot makes sense suddenly, in a non-verbal shot of clarity that fills my whole being. It all makes sense.

And I raise my arms and let out a yodel of euphoria as the first person in the group behind me reaches the cairn.’

This is an optional dawn walk during the Tarkine Eco-Healing Retreat. Next one is 16 Feb 2023.