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The way up is the way down.*
Out at the edge of the world
tectonic plates,
continental shelves,
are cataclysmically shifting;
colliding,
grinding together,
crushing and buckling and crumpling,
breaking
the surface of the earth
open
forcing whole oceans of stone
upwards into the sky,
and down
into the sea of magma below,
bursting forth in flaming lava conflagrations,
mountainous volcanoes.
The way up is the way down.
We see the mountain and we immediately seem to want to climb…
Climb the mountain…
Climb the mountain…
Climb the mountain…
To get to the top…
To get to the top…
To get to the top…
Climb your goal…
Climb your purpose…
Climb out of your deepest darkest fears..
Climb the crushing steps to Mt Neverest…
Climb the ladder…
Climb the ladder…
Climb the corporate ladder,
Climb the pyramid scheme of Mt Maslow,
Climb the spiral dynamic of Mt. Wilber,
Climb the ladder of the spirit,
Climb Jacob’s ladder.
Climb…
‘cause up up up there,
freed from the Land of Nod,
surely we’re closer to God…
Leave the world behind,
climb right out of mind…
Must climb;
the profit margin, the GDP,
the relentlessly impossible growth curve of limitless growth.
Must climb;
the pinnacle of success,
the top of the totem pole,
success excess,
must climb.
Master your mountain within
Conquer your mountain within
Be the mountain Conquistador…
And at the tippy-toe tip-top of the tip-top top of the mountain…
I’m Fuck of the Mountain!**
I’m Fuck of the Mountain!
I’m Fuck of the Mountain!
But don’t stop…
grow grow grow,
climb up,
go up,
go up up and away,
Superman, UberMensch,
the pure clean air,
clean and clear the DNA,
get the pure clean code…
…beyond…
even beyond Mt Neverest…
you can take flight…
you can fly to the sun…
limitless growth…
Icharus.
But…
up…
up…
at the top….
of the mountain…
the highest peak…
of the mountain within….
the highest peak…
of the mind…
in the cool…
clear…
detached…
immortal…
ether…
it’s freezing…
ice…
cold…
the air…
is rare…
there’s no…
oxygen…
there’s…
not…
a living…
thing…
The way up is the way down
Descend…
down the vertiginous precipice,
descend…
descend…
down…
down…
humility is endless,
or tragedy strikes,
the heart, the body, the soul,
and we fall..
we fall…
we all fall
it is the destiny of all.
We all fall down,
we all fall down down,
down to the ground ground ground,
the ground of being
Urgrund…
The way up is the way down.
We fall
down
to the valley below,
and down in the valley below
where all the creeks and brooks and streams flow
down
filling the deep wide rivers,
feeding the great green abundance,
of salmon and trout,
and grape vines plump, and orchards of fruit trees,
and fields of grasses and fields of barley and fields of wheat.
But continue down,
let yourself fall
even further down…
into the swamp,
rank and fecund,
palpably palpitating, pungent,
reeking of death and growth, compost,
ordure, foliage, green,
protozean ooze,
complexity, diversity and multitude,
effervescing shoots sprouting from the guts of being.
The way up is the way down.
And the glaciers,
and the great rivers,
and the swamp waters,
follow the sure grave pull of gravity…
…all flow to the sea.
The way up is the way down…
And out at the edge of the world,
the edge of the continental shelf,
the mountain you see
is just the tip of the iceberg
of the mountain that plunges down,
still further down,
into the deep dark sea.
Way way beneath sea level,
way way beneath the bottom line,
the mountain descends still further,
plunging down
into the depths of the ocean.
Down down down,
20,000 ft down,
to deep, dark, unexplored regions and realms
of the Abyssal Plains.
Way way down down down,
in the deepest darkest extremes,
strange alien creatures dwell,
and even flourish,
in the crushing pressure
of the mind.
The way up is the way down.
It’s all one mountain:
From the pinnacle peak
to the verdant valley
to the spawning swamp
to the Abyssal Plain
at the bottom of the ocean
within.
* Heraclitus
What does it mean, ‘to explore’?
‘Explore’.
‘Ex’ means ‘outside of’, like ‘ex-stasy, which means ‘out of’ ‘stasis’,
which is what we as change facilitators are so good at;
helping people and organizations out of stasis.
‘Ex’ means ‘outside of’,
but what is ‘plore’??
‘Plore’s’ original meaning is ‘to cry’, to shed tears…
From the French ‘pleure’.
But ‘pleure’ also means ‘to let flow’.
So ‘explore’ implies vulnerability,
and also letting yourself go into the natural flow of your curiosity and intrinsic desire for discovery…
——
SO
I now invite you
to
take a mountain pose.
And now I implore you
to explore
your mountain within
the tips of your fingers, 9000 feet up, are the pinnacle peak
your diaphragm is the verdant valley
your groin is the spawning swamp
and your feet, 20,000 ft down, resting on the bottom of the ocean, is the abyssal plain.
To truly ‘explore’ you must go down as much as you go up.
The way up is the way down.
——
– Poem by Nik Beeson
– Illustration by Daniel Hoernemann
– Alpine Change Days, Oct. 2022
Amazing perspective …from both the bottom and the top.
The road of life takes us to both of these places …sometimes looking up and sometimes down …sometimes somewhere in between.
I do hope we can connect.
Similar paths.
Different roads.
You might enjoy one of my short stories …the latest …from a collection called Home on the Road.
Sending my very best to you and yours,
Patrick
My life has been full of exploration.
Thanks for checking in Patrick!
Yes, both places all the time.
I’m trying to be more conscious of when I’m trying to ‘climb out of’ something/somewhere that might actually be really interesting and useful…
I’d love the short story.
Will email you!
Explore on!!
I love the poem, the concept and the paradigm shift. Interested in further explanation.
Curiously,
J
*the drunk elf in my phone called “autocorrect” changed exploration to explanation….
Par for the course 🤷🏽♀️
Thanks Jeanne for the comment.
Yes… I was presenting to a lot of Change Facilitators, many of whom work with ‘leadership’ and so often the underlying assumption is to just ‘climb, climb, climb’. I wanted to challenge that. It seems a foundational aspect of the divorce of western/dominant culture from ‘nature’ and ‘care’.
BTW – I love your Instagram feed! Always full of positive energy and good humour.