The Mountain Shadow

by Gregory David Roberts

‘Violence, tyranny, oppression, injustice, these are all mountains on the topography of life’s journey,’ Idriss said. ‘Life is an encounter with those mountains. The safest way to pass beyond the mountain is to walk around it. But if you choose that path it becomes the whole of your life, because walking around becomes a circle that never stops, and one of those mountains becomes your destiny. The only way onwards, to something else beyond the circle, and to see clearly enough to avoid new mountains, is to climb the mountain and cross it from the peak. But the thing about a mountain is that no part of the climb is less dangerous than the part you just completed.’ ‘Which means?’ I asked. ‘I worry about you both,’ he said. ‘I worry about you often. The view from the top, after the dangerous climb, is something you can’t have if you take the safer path within the circle, but it has great risks. And you must rely on each other and help each other more than ever before. You are already climbing through the mountain shadow, both of you.’ ‘Have you climbed all your mountains, Idriss?’ Karla asked. ‘I was married once,’ he said softly and slowly. ‘A long time ago. And my wife, may her soul know happiness, was a constant companion in the spiritual search, as you are for one another. I would be nothing, without all the many things we learned together. And now I climb through the mountain shadow alone.’

Mountain shadow