The Mountain: Doesn’t Rush but Grows Steadily Upwards
Standing at the base of a mountain can bring a sense of awe, the sheer size of these monuments are unfathomable. The mountain invokes a sense of adventure and has challenged humans, throughout our his/herstory wanting to ascend to the peak. It can be a place of reverence, spirituality, and holiness. We often think of hermits, sages, monks living in the mountains. In mythology, mountains are often places where spirits, Goddesses and Gods dwell.
The Mountain as an archetype is something that stands humbly in the eternal. The mountain doesn’t rush but grows steadily upwards in its own time. As Kim Krans writes in The Wild Unknown: Archetypes, "The Mountain can affect us in two ways: it can inspire and enliven us to rise to new heights, and peak experience… yet it can also create isolation, competitiveness, and an inflated sense of self.” (129). There is something about the mountain that is unpredictable and still wild. Some may think of the mountain as surmountable, something to be conquered, which creates a sense of separation. No matter how many times a human ascends to the peak, they will either come back down inspired or have an “inflated sense of self”.
The Mountain by Kim Krans
There are many mountains around the world that are considered sacred. In the Himalayas, Mount Kailash is a sacred site to many different religions including Buddhism and Hinduism. In the Hindu text, Mount Kailash is described as Mount Meru and is said to be the home of Shiva and his consort Parivriti along with their children. In the Buddhist tradition, Kailash is the home of Samvara, a guardian deity. You can read the Wikipedia article here.
The yoga pose, Tadasana (Mountain Pose), creates a sense of grounding, strength, stillness and balance. Next time you find yourself in this pose, call to your mind an image of a mountain. Think of how a mountain is unwavering and stands tall becoming a connection between the heavens and earth.
We have arrived at the last archetype in this series, The Mountain. We started with the Sacred Fool being the leap of faith into the unknown, The Seed is the idea, The Vision is the inspiration and The Mountain is the challenge.
I chose challenge as the word for The Mountain. Because after taking the leap to pursue the idea of having inspiration for how you want to proceed comes the challenge of figuring out how to make what you want a reality. There is nothing stopping you from obtaining what you want in this lifetime. If the archetypes, I invite you to explore more. There is no limit to these modalities and they are all around us.
