This is the ledge at Overlook Mountain. To the left along the river (just out of view) is Saugerties. Straight ahead on this side of the river is Kingston and on the far side, Rhinebeck. Down to the right at the base of the mountain is Woodstock NY.
The hike is a wide rocky carriage road that begins across the street from a Tibetan Monastery with hundreds of Prayer Flags in the trees and leads you up through the Overlook Hotel ruins (1871) and then up higher to a fire tower and then this rock ledge that looks out over the Valley.
Natures Stair Master.
The hike has become a kind of pilgrimage. The familiarity and repetitiveness creates the kind of constraint and boundary my brain can thrive and rest in. I know how to get there, what lays ahead (generally) and my inner scaredy-cat of the unknown can move forward fearlessly without too much hesitation. I don't need to make many decisions, no brain power needed- just get there. The hike is hard enough to be challenging but not so hard that I dread it. Although I keep my eyes open for Black Bears, and the many Timber Rattlesnakes who live in the rocks at the top.
The hike is never the same but always familiar which is a welcome respite as we move forward from these past few extreme and difficult years.
I love the feeling of standing on the ledge immersed in the wind and the sky and never regret making the effort. An energized, tired, and exalted arrival. In my minds eye, a warrior-one pose, clear and difficult. Back heel rooted, front knee extended, energy pushing up through an arched back and open heart, to your hands reaching for the sky. Complete with a ta-da resonance of sound.
Resonance occurs widely in nature. It is the mechanism by which virtually all sinusoidal waves and vibrations are generated. Many sounds we hear, such as when hard objects of metal, glass, or wood are struck, are caused by brief resonant vibrations in the object. Light and other short wavelength electromagnetic radiation is produced by resonance on an atomic scale, such as electrons in atoms.
My goal to start the new year: Set yourself up for success. Break the big shit down and start small, take baby steps creating goals that lay in the zone of do-able, so they don't send you running the other way.
Sending healing vibes and a joyful entry to 2023.
40% of the sales of this Ornament will be donated to Seeding Sovereignty in their front line work to aid low-income and Indigenous communities that are chronically and disproportionately impacted by lack of clean drinking water, water resource extraction by fossil fuel and animal agriculture industries, and health harms from polluted water supplies.
The images on the ornament represent our water planet Earth, and the North Star, also known as 'The star that does not walk around'.
WE ALL LIVE DOWNSTREAM.
NORTH STAR = KEEP GOING ✨
