Welcome to Earth

In early March 2011, I embarked upon a journey that set my gaze, 'stood at the top of the great Andes in Peru.' Leaving the last village, the point of no return, we pack our tents and other belongings and set off toward the mountains' pass. The team and I walk through lands of new, timely rests where pools of ice tell the story of moving into another biosphere. The land underfoot started to turn into a glacier as we ascended the mountains' passages. The expedition leader mentioned...
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In early March 2011, I embarked upon a journey that set my gaze, 'stood at the top of the great Andes in Peru.' Leaving the last village, the point of no return, we pack our tents and other belongings and set off toward the mountains' pass. The team and I walk through lands of new, timely rests where pools of ice tell the story of moving into another biosphere. The land underfoot started to turn into a glacier as we ascended the mountains' passages. The expedition leader mentioned previously while at base camp "take a stone as an offering to the God's of the mountain". With fresh eyes and frozen vapour on my face we stood facing where we had just travelled. I hold the stone in prayer-like hands now that we had reached the summit of the mountain. The wind blew calmly and suddenly. There were many stones placed upon one another, like totem poles as memorials to surviving adventurers such as myself. Placing my stone I was grounded and I looked hastily around, excited in the notion of descending the second largest mountain in the known world. I searched for wood, anything to make a sledge or skies. In my excitement I only see stone upon stones. Steadying myself for a second I look to my chest. I am wearing a gore-tex jacket I think to myself and smile. "Okay," I said to the team members, "I am off!" They look at me in humour. "What do you mean you are off?" With that I leap off the mountain's peak onto the glacier snow, sliding on my belly as the first human to surf down this mountain in a gore-tex jacket. The expedition leader later explains that this mountain hasn't had snow on it for 35 years as I keenly acknowledge his words. Surfing down the mountain I found myself funnelled into a valley to where a slowly forming river had been created by the erosion. Gradually the sides of the river banks grew larger and so did the smile on my face. Thrilled to be bobsledding through this frozen river on my belly I cry and laugh and giggle at this unforgettable experience. I climb the bank of the river in total celebration as I look up to small dots that are the team descending the mountain. Covered in snow I look around to a lake that once was beneath me. The scene was rocky with many coloured grasses surrounding the lake. A path to my left led down to where wild horses grazed at the water's edge, but my attention was to my right where a magnificent wild white horse stood alone. I slowly took my backpack off and laid it on a rock as I humbly walked several steps toward the horse. Kneeling, I looked into the horse's eyes and a moment is shared, a moment where all restrictions seemed to pass unseen. There wasn't any judgment, only truth in this timeless place. Our time lasted and then I asked if I can take a photo in memory. The horse bowed her head, raising it, she bellows a plume of steam out of her nose with the look of acceptance as I wasn't just a bystander at this point, I had become a part of the land. In this moment I look up to my right, sensing a magical movement coming from above the top of the mountain's peak, a feeling, a frequency, a moving entity. I didn't know what I had witnessed until months later after writing a book, this book of consciousness. I wasn't aware that I was writing a book of what I experienced in that exact moment! This book was written through me!The pages that are to follow took me five months to write and a further two and a half years to refine as my consciousness wasn't aware of what I was writing. My warmest appreciation.John Gihair