Mountain Mamas
In the coming weeks, I'm excited to talk more about my human and internal interactions that I had in the Appalachian mountains, but I wanted to set the scene a little. Sometimes the stage deserves as much recognition as the scenes acted upon it.
I love mountains. I guess, I love the mountains that I've had the chance to see for myself: the Appalachians, the Rockies, and the very beginnings of the Pyrenees. But there's one mountain range that has the tightest grip on my heart: the Appalachian Mountains.
I can almost hear the disbelief through my computer screen. I've always preferred the Appalachians, and I wasn't really able to put my finger on it until I got to take this recent trip to North Carolina. My trip took me through a large part of the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Great Smoky Mountains, both parts of the Appalachian range. And I was lucky enough to see them in many different ways: with clear skies, obscured by clouds, lit up by impossibly bright sunlight, caught up in a surprise afternoon rainstorm, awakened by the first few shades of dawn, and blending into the darkening night. There were so many feelings at play as I wound my tiny car through the peaks, ridges, and valleys of the Blue Ridge Parkway, and even more when I stepped out of that tiny car and allowed my tiny self to sit on the ground, in the company of giants.
While I was in Asheville, we had gone on a hike and then sat for awhile, enjoying the view of the mountains and each other's company, and someone brought up how the Appalachians are a lot older than the Rockies, and that there was a point where the Appalachians may have rivaled them in height. I had heard the same thing, but I wanted to know just how much older the Appalachians were. I mean, the United States is a large country, but there can't be that big of a difference, right? Well, I did some quick research (read: checked Wikipedia), and found out that the Rocky Mountains are between 55 and 80 million years old, which is incredibly old. For reference, the speciation of humans (homo sapiens, to be more clear) occurred about 350,000 years ago. The Late Cretaceous period, when the Rockies were born, is more widely known as the time of dinosaurs. However, the Appalachian mountains were formed about 480 million years ago. This would fall during the Ordovician period, when land plants first evolved and air-breathing animals were still a few million years away. That's just incredible to me. Even taking the oldest parts of the Rockies, the Appalachians are five times older. And they were, at one point, at a similar height as the Rockies and the Alps, and have come to their current state through natural erosion.
The wisdom of the mountains can be felt when you are among them. These mountain elders, that sit, quiet and powerful, without pride and willingly giving way to those structures that came after them. Mountains in themselves have really striking imagery and symbolism: they're powerful, they're adventurous, they're dangerous, they're challenging. While the Appalachians are technically those things as well, it's almost like those words are spoken in a different tone when you refer to them. And there's different anthropomorphic adjectives to give them too: they're humble, they're gentle, they're comforting, they're welcoming. There's an incredible peace that comes from being there, the comforting feeling that comes from knowing your smallness. In a human sense, I am a large, tall woman. In a mountain sense, I am an ant, a tiny blooming flower, a minnow. In Catholic school growing up, we often recited the Irish Blessing:
May the road rise ever to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back,
May the sun shine warm on your face,
And the rain fall soft upon your field,
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.
And I don't know, in seeing the curves of the Appalachians, I couldn't help but think that, if you squinted a little and used a lot of imagination, it would feel an awful lot like you were being held in God's hand.
I love mountains. I guess, I love the mountains that I've had the chance to see for myself: the Appalachians, the Rockies, and the very beginnings of the Pyrenees. But there's one mountain range that has the tightest grip on my heart: the Appalachian Mountains.
While I was in Asheville, we had gone on a hike and then sat for awhile, enjoying the view of the mountains and each other's company, and someone brought up how the Appalachians are a lot older than the Rockies, and that there was a point where the Appalachians may have rivaled them in height. I had heard the same thing, but I wanted to know just how much older the Appalachians were. I mean, the United States is a large country, but there can't be that big of a difference, right? Well, I did some quick research (read: checked Wikipedia), and found out that the Rocky Mountains are between 55 and 80 million years old, which is incredibly old. For reference, the speciation of humans (homo sapiens, to be more clear) occurred about 350,000 years ago. The Late Cretaceous period, when the Rockies were born, is more widely known as the time of dinosaurs. However, the Appalachian mountains were formed about 480 million years ago. This would fall during the Ordovician period, when land plants first evolved and air-breathing animals were still a few million years away. That's just incredible to me. Even taking the oldest parts of the Rockies, the Appalachians are five times older. And they were, at one point, at a similar height as the Rockies and the Alps, and have come to their current state through natural erosion.
May the road rise ever to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back,
May the sun shine warm on your face,
And the rain fall soft upon your field,
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.
And I don't know, in seeing the curves of the Appalachians, I couldn't help but think that, if you squinted a little and used a lot of imagination, it would feel an awful lot like you were being held in God's hand.
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