That's how my experience of the mountains began. Immersing myself in a wild and isolated world, I went exploring the geographical territory of the Apennine mountains, I went experiencing the sense of isolation (where it is still possible to feel solitude), and I also went exploring what was my inner world.
When everything around is silent, if we compare the natural environment with the frantic life of the cities, we manage to hear the sound of our body, the voice of our thoughts or the stillness of meditation.
The natural environment is the ideal place to rebuild your own psychological and spiritual inner world. Walking along a snowy mule track, passing through a beech wood, sounds become muffled, everything seems softer and, despite the decidedly bitter temperatures, you find yourself immersed in a world that nonetheless looks welcoming.
The physical movement requires no concentration; there's no instruction manual for walking, we're all able to do it instinctively. Nobody ever explained to us that one foot has to be placed in front of the other, alternately. If we had to think about how to walk we probably wouldn't even be able to do it and we'd trip up almost at once.
And while our instinct carries us step by step along the path, our mind can finally relax. Dormant thoughts surface, ideas, feelings that in everyday life we keep smothered under a heap of duties, commitments, thoughts and worries.
As we walk the most incredible thoughts surface, the ones hidden deep down, or things that in daily life we know but would never dare admit.
Walking, we can let our thoughts flow in disorder, without any rule. This is an important opportunity to try meditation: it is the best therapy for facing even the darkest sides of our “selves”.
The effort of walking on snow and up the steady slope of a mountain forces us to perceive the limits of our body but also how wonderfully it works. As we walk we instinctively realise that nature has provided us with everything that was necessary for our life. Nature gave our body nothing superfluous, only what was concretely necessary.
Recovering this direct relationship with our body, feeling the heart beating in our chest, feeling the ribcage open to breathe in all the air it can, gives us back a deep and instinctive awareness of our existence. It is a simple awareness, the perception of the “here and now”, and it has a psychological and therapeutic value of great importance.
When nature, thought, deep psychology, rational reasoning and moral sensibility come together in the simple act of walking, then we are working on our spirit. And so, as Erri de Luca says, “whoever walks is invincible”. It isn't just a banal feeling of well-being produced by higher levels of dopamine; it is a physical and mental state that comes from the perfect reunion of all the facets of our existence.
Walking in the mountains you can just as well reflect on practical matters of our daily lives (how will I pay my taxes, how will I bring up my children, what choices for my future) as on the more abstract matters of our existence (how to be more tolerant, how to be assertive or determined, the world of my religious feeling).
The journey inside yourself is marked by the rhythm of nature. We can observe in complete freedom the flow of our thoughts, make them grow, evolve and strengthen our inner certainties.
After a long journey, through effort and physical and mental commitment, standing still on the summit of a mountain we see the world from a new perspective: everyday problems seem so far away, so small, so simply solvable. It's this simplicity that we have to bring back into daily life. The mountains, hiking, the relationship with nature can give us that extra mental energy we need every day.
How many important themes of our spirit and our thinking?
- Thinking about and accepting our own flaws and our dark sides
- Seeing everyday problems from a distance
- Rethinking our relationship with the people closest to us
- Meditating on feelings and emotions: well-being, unease, worries, fears
- Weighing up our own religious creed or our faith
- Growing beyond and overcoming our own incapacities, our own pride.
- Thinking about our scale of values.
- How deep is our inner world?
A hike in the mountains, an alpine stroll, the simple act of walking in a wood are opportunities to immerse yourself in an unexpected journey, in a hidden and deep world full of surprises.