Ideas to live by

Hi there again happy readers,

Its been a while since I've been really present here at Mount Beauty Mama and it feels good to be back baby!

Our Mountain Mamas trip to New Zealand, which I wrote briefly about in my last post, has changed form in my soul over the last 10 days or so since we've returned. Much like a new baby, the experience has grown, changed and is being integrated into 'everyday life' with each day that passes. What was upon our return a wealth of inspiration, is now so much more - a signpost for greater adventures to come, a beacon of hope when life feels low and a much needed opportunity taken with both hands. In short, its something to be proud of.

While we were away on that fantastic adventure we had the chance to go night caving with some friends we made, and it was a special time that I wrote a lot about while we were there. I've included it below so you can get another sense of the amazing journey we had:

Night Caving

Yes, you heard right. In the spirit of being comfortable on the edge, and of stretching my comfort zone beyond its previous area of stress and overwhelm, I gratefully accepted the offer of a late-night exploration of Luxmore Cave up here in the mountains of southern fiordland, NZ.
And so, with a waning moon rising above the far horizon, six trampers from very different parts of the world set off across the tussock grass fields to the entrance and down, down into blacker depths.
I have caved in the past. At first with great pride and a sense of fun, but more recently - post children and with a more 'reserved life' - with fear and trepidation (well, with stress and overwhelm to be honest). And so, immediate acceptance of this offer is a good sign that this adventure away is working its magic on me too. A sign that I'm giving more to myself each day.

Back to the adventure....

I was the first the enter the upper reaches of the cave, having visited already the day before, and descended down to a point where we needed to crawl on  all fours for a few metres. At this point Jacob (from Sweden) took the lead, which I was honestly grateful for as my imagination was taking over from my rationalism.
Slowly, slowly the six of us descended through squeezes and caverns, sometimes on our knees, sometimes able to stand up, beneath stalagtites and around flowstones. It was a magical experience to be exploring the unknown with likeminded strangers and it buoyed my faith in humanity and its inherent goodness.
At the farthest, deepest part Jacob suggested we turn off our headtorches and spend a minute in silent blackness. It felt sacred and special and we all readily agreed. However, in the black I felt uncomfortable suddenly - it was beyond my comfort zone - and asked if we could all hold hands, if only so I would feel better,
And so there we were, perhaps 100 metres below the tussock grass above, at the end of our journey down in a ring holding hands - me, Jacob, Megan, Meni from Israel, Ruth and Pascale from Germany - all from different parts of the world, in the black inkiness.
And then, with a special bond between us, we returned to the world to continue our journeys.

You can see that this was a special time for us, and one that I've certainly carried home with me to refer to when times get tough - to remind me that we're all connected, we all belong and that peace does exist in the world.

And that brings me to my latest book-love.

I've been avoiding it for a while - too clichéd, too popular - I thought. But then I was ordering from Amazon anyway and thought I'd add to my order - Danielle La Porte's The Desire Map: A Guide to Creating Goals with Soul.

And, oh my, its so lovely, so refreshing. so cut-straight-to-the-bullsh*t. And I'm loving it. So far, with lots of the theory of desire behind, and a few exercises and a walk in the bush to really feel it under my belt, I've identified what I'm really craving at the moment - and what it was that I found in that cave in New Zealand:

Connection (with the world, with others, to the earth)
Belonging (to my family, myself, the world, this moment)
Peace (within myself, in the world)
Worship (of my abilities, my experiences, my life, this moment)

These are my ideas to live by right now. This is what is driving me.

What's driving you?

xx

Some more pretty NZ pictures below - though none in the cave I'm afraid...

Mirror lake

Seals in Milford Sound

Gazing up at a large native NZ pine - a huge, ancient tree.

One of the many spectacular NZ streams

On the Kepler Track en route to Brod Bay.

Back from the precipice

We're back from New Zealand - a week of inspiration, the wildness of the mountains and eating out with friends.

We arrived home late Sunday night - four days ago - and I had ideas about writing for you straight away - well, actually in New Zealand I was going to write.

But the experiences were so intense, and the week-off so treasured, that writing fell by the wayside except for a couple of particular times that sparked a rush of creativity.

And now that I'm back I'm just so exhausted. For three days now I've felt like I'm near the bottom of a low, needing lots of sleep, forgetting things, struggling to be organised. I feel overwhelmed with inspiration and don't know where to start, or what to do about it. Something as magnificent as this last week away in the mountains of NZ surely deserves poetry, accolades and a pedestal from which to shine. And I'm the one graced with the task of doing that.

So for now, I include the writing I did while away, with lots of lovely pictures for you to get a sense of the adventures we had.

Kepler Track

We're on the Kepler Track - walking, caring, growing. It hasn't been as we've expected but we are taking our challenges in our stride, working together and facing our own inner voices of doubt.

We've walked in the rain and the sun and the wind. We were greeted by a rainbow in Te Anau as we made our final preparations.

We walked, at the beginning, through a happy, magical forest full of ferns and tall, tall trees. At each turn I had visions of fairies or gnomes that might peak from behind a tree stump or appear from a hole beneath a bush. I thought of Rosie and how she would love this fairyland.

And now we've spent a day in a lovely mountain hut near Mount Luxmore. Our injured Mama has flown out via helicopter, leaving the three of us remaining to enjoy the day's solitude in an empty hut and the camaraderie of the evening's trampers.

We sit together, at the end of the communal kitchen area, where the windows are large and the jagged peaks across the lake call to us 'come and explore, take our photo'.

We make silly jokes and greet new trampers as they enter from their day walking in the rain.

We clean the kitchen for the ranger and light the fire in return for him letting us stay another night, since its now too late to continue and complete the walk.

Its quieter with three of us here together instead of four, but we have a good time anyway.

Are we richer for this experience? Most certainly I think. Through our challenges - different for us all - we have grown. For some the walk itself - the physical exertion of it - was the precipice of which they danced. For others is was the mental challenge of changing circumstances, time away from little ones and the sound of snoring in huts full of people.