Mt. St. Helens~ Indomitable Survivor, Inspiring Spirit….

With guests expected from Seattle and Portland using Adytum as middle meeting ground, we left The Orion Suite open for their pleasure, heading for Mt. St. Helens for ours. It had frankly been years…What’s the lure of devastation grounds, post-hot, molten lava battlefield terrain? Trees with their tops blown off and trunks shattered into matchsticks…barrenness and sand where the lush forest undergrowth was rooted in rich soil in 1979 …scant vegetation now where luxurious woods sheltered diverse wildlife before. This was a desert and Mt. Rainier holds far more lure and appeal in its magnificent beauty and glory. But we went, reluctantly. Our guests were all going, so we went to see what was new in the intervening years since our last visit. It reminded me of visiting a dying relative in a nursing home – dutiful hesitancy prevailed…but by the end of the day that powerful, enduring mountain would teach me a thing or two that will serve me for my lifetime.

Mt. St. Helens

The morning started with a clatter. It’s been so unexpectedly hot lately that before dawn, when I wake, all the doors and windows are flung open to accept the cooling air into the heat of the house. The dog food dish set near the open French Doors of the kitchen’s dining room seduced a bold Stellar Jay inside…just one little nugget and out he’d go. Well, he was startled or somehow disoriented and, now banging and crashing into every promising exit, he had me running down the spiral staircase at top speed trying not to trip on my long bathrobe to see what happened…I’ve never heard anything like it. By now the notoriously arrogant Jay was bashing against the myriad of windows and frantically exhausting every resource. Hmmm. Grab him and get pecked? Have you seen the length of those stabbing, pointy beaks?....Pray…Breathe…Think…Ah, dish towel wrapped snugly and soft voice reassuring. Finally, swaddled tightly and the sudden release into open air, he flew to freedom hopefully never to thieve again, his arrogant magnificence humbled abruptly.

Not the usual start to my day. The incident with the Jay seemed to hold something- a message, an omen.  His morning's antics juxtaposed  against a once proud, now barren mountain and the Jay emerging cowardly and humbled; this proud Stellar Jay with its royal coat of deep blue and crested head like a Roman centurion’s helmet. Yet the homely mountain would regain stature in my thinking by day's end and I would wonder why I stayed away so long.

A few hours later at 4000 feet…A hollow, barren mountain once revered as the crowning beauty—they say Mount Saint Helens was the reigning beauty of them all – a miniature Mount Fuji; the perfection of all mountains in North America—and now this…half standing in decapitated misery bereft of abundant life…dry… a few brave flowers struggled to survive. Mudslides and lava flows carved chasms in her once lush forestland. I’m not as appreciative of a desert territory as the seduction of deep, quiet woodlands. Yet something spoke…

When the day was done, after I had admission to the throne of its still-great presence despite its lofty head being blown off, I had to ask myself, “What is a mountain? What is a mountain with a volcanic expression? A mountain with proud, brash defiance?

Think about it…..

In its essence, a mountain is a concept. It’s an attitude. And yes, that attitude is about power. Grounded power. In the case of a volcanic mountain like St. Helens -  It’s about power with force; force that devastates and nourishes all at once, power that destroys all below and sacrifices itself in the process of its expression.

Is a mountain the whole? Or is it the base or the summit?

Kirlian photography suggests that regardless if we can see the once lofty summit marching on heaven itself, it still exists energetically every bit as much as an amputee still feels the itch on the back of his hand that was blown off by a grenade…Something tells me this mountain knows exactly who she is…crowning summit of glory or not.

It’s still a mountain if it can’t be moved…

A mountain isn’t stature or a peak or even the lush beauty.

It’s the spreading, strong, and stable base, the territory taken that will never be relinquished. It is the steadfast and tenacious ‘never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever give up’ Churchillian attitude.

It’s the “I shall not be moved” proclamation, no matter how outward appearances seek to betray our steadfast courage because vital roots are sunk into Something substantial, something deep within that cannot be removed.Leaders are often forged in the crucible of loneliness and silence. So when the invitation is extended to join the 'mountain-hood of leadership' and lead others through challenging days standing firm and unshakable it is already a way of life.

“Courage is fear holding on a minute longer.” General George Smith Patton

A mountain like St. Helens might be stripped, but not broken, an aura of eternal power inherent in her minimalism is palpable. She might not be a beauty, but the strength that envelopes her is intense, profound, and real.   Her greatest strength lies in seeming weakness –

This mountain really taught me a thing or two today. Viktor Frankl’s wartime experience springs to mind- take all you want but you can’t take my freedom of thought and mine is powerful beyond belief!!!

The last of human freedoms - the ability to choose one's attitude in a given set of circumstances.  Viktor E. Frankl

              

St. Helens is not done yet. Not only has she survived; she’s staging a comeback in the growth of her lava dome. She’s rebuilding from the ashes of her own seeming defeat. Forward motion, unstoppable positive progression…always. The leap of faith and the sheer force of will carrying her now.

“We are standing, of course, on the brink and must take the jump—whether the bottom contains a nice feather bed or a pile of brickbats!” Dwight David Eisenhower from Eisenhower on Leadership by Alan Axelrod

I could go into so much here about our innocuous little day trip that turned out to be so strengthening…the terrain changes along the way from typical Pacific Northwest lushness to “California”dryness to pure desert with plants struggling for their next drop of water. The four gift shops along the way where I spoiled the grandbabies rotten in books and toys designed to teach conservation and the love and care of nature…

I LOVE Museum & National Park Gift stores...Spoiling the Babies...

The opportunities to hike and to dine along the way…Hearing of Donn’s first-hand experiences over dinner when he lived through St. Helen’s eruption, shoveling through 10 barrels of ash and driving in its dust storm intensity and the devastation of his father-in-law’s alfalfa seed crop in Eastern Washington, 300 miles away because of the ash fallout and no rain to clear it from the plants…fascinating as all that is, it somehow pales in the lesson of this great steadfast mountain that has now obtained legendary status so much so that every language was heard on the trail to the summit look-out.

For those that have ears to hear, everything speaks; the misguided Jay of my early morning…St. Helens in the dying day….It all comes back to mentor us as an oft unrecognized gift. Like this notorious mountain, we are capable of much more than we ever imagined. We can survive a stripping. We can stand firm. We are made of strength all the way to our molten hot core with power to overcome all obstacles that stand in our path. We are strong beyond belief when our roots sink down into Something more substantial than shifting sand -- that life-giving  Source deep within. We are founded on a Rock and we will not be moved.

We are Powerful Beyond Belief

Moreover, we WILL make a comeback when challenged because we exist in the Kirlian fullness we inhabit in the Mind of God- we are whole and wholesome, complete and full. Looks and appearances…they’re nothing. We know who we are and what our destiny holds.  We’ve gathered character and strength along our unique Way that nothing can disrupt or move. Do you feel it? We are all made of the same ‘stuff’ as Mt. St. Helens,  Mt.Rainier—all the great mountains…made of star dust, courage, love,  unyielding will, and indomitable confidence.

St. Helens blew in the 1980’s era of insane luxury when the markets were rising and wealth came easy. She was a warning to the brash, the bold…the thievery of misplaced  trust in Wall Street bankers' confidence. She symbolized the crash of 2004 and helps us to believe all these years later that we too can stand IF we stand on the power of the Substantial within. We can not only stand but offer safe haven to others who seek refuge at our feet- like the beauty of the wildflowers and chipmunks that reinhabit desolate flanks at hers. We can even nurture others from our desolateness because it’s not our springs we draw from alone but from the inexhaustible Source that fuels us. This is the lesson of the greatest, most beautiful Mountain in this hemisphere.

I went hoping to indulge in the easy beauty I find so naturally at Mt. Rainier and I found unexpected grace in a seeming beaten-down beauty instead. I encountered fortitude, stamina, determination, and courage in her presence. We like to rest in what’s sensual and pleasing but we need to rest in true strength, unfailing hope, faith, and encouragement. These are tough days. We need the power of this mountain that possesses the ability still to decimate yet who allows herself to stand seemingly totally humbled for now to be an example and an encouragement for us all.

“People surmount tragedy when they use themselves up fully, when they use what they have and what they are, whatever they are and wherever they find themselves, even if this requires them to ignore cultural prescription or to behave in innovating ways undefined by their roles. The tragic sense does not derive from the feeling that people must always be less than history and culture demand; it derives, rather, from the sense that they have been less than they could have been, that they needlessly betrayed themselves…” Alvin Gouldner, The Coming Crisis in Western Sociology from the book Guerrilla Leader, T.E. Lawrence and the Arab Revolt by James J. Schneider.