An Anishinaabe preacher mentioned to me that I was fortunate to be walking on sacred ground. This was shortly before I began a trek to visit the Ntambara Group of Mountain Gorillas here in Rwanda. We would eventually climb to over 3200 meters (over 10,000 feet) in a very steep climb on Mount Visoke. Part of the trail would traverse the same path that Dian Fossey wore in the African soil after she became fascinated with gorillas during a trip to Africa in 1963. Scraping by with research grants from Louis Leakey and National Geographic Magazine, Fossey studied the endangered gorillas of the Virunga forests for over twenty years before her still unsolved murder in 1985. The trail we walked branches off to her research station, Karisoke, where she was murdered.
Sacred ground.
My preacher friend reminded me that to truly embrace the sacred, one must suffer, sacrifice, leave the comfort zone, endure, or experience all.
Irony ruled in the realization that what I was worried about, an inability to push my body at altitude, did not occur. I had plenty of air, but found myself struggling mightily against sucking mud that threatened to swallow my feet in the mire. I cannot adequately describe the strength of will it took to push on through the mud that resulted from Fossey’s old trail, which was now further worn into the mountainside by the tens of thousands of animals which have since claimed it as their own.
I could not have made it without the sure hands of my porter who would grab me before a slippery fall. At one of the worst parts of the climb, I was able for a few moments to take my eyes off of my feet long enough to see the group of people ahead of me. We were two Brits, two Australians, two Americans, and my friend Alex. Joining each of us, hand in hand, was an African Porter, guarding against treacherous falls. It reminded me of what Fossey said about her African anti-poaching patrols. She called them “The backbone of Karisoke.”
These Rwandans strengthened my spine and made my journey possible.
After hours of slogging and climbing higher and higher, I found it was not at all a question of “mind over matter.” What mattered most was where the mind wanted to take me. I could focus on failure or literally take one step at a time, while trying to clear my mind of all conscious thought. It became a meditation. A very necessary meditation, or I could not have made it. I could not think of the goal of the gorillas, for fear of failure to reach them. I could not think of Fossey without remembering that in her later days (in her fifties), she required an oxygen tank due to her emphysema. I could not focus on my own age (older than Fossey) without serious doubt in my abilities.
One foot in front of the other.
One foot in front of the other.
After reaching the gorillas, time and fatigue melted away for an hour of privilege. It was an open-air cathedral of shared time with complete innocence in the form of beings that shared human countenance but not human malevolence.
I experienced it all and am grateful.
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