The Mountain is Calling

The Archetypal Mountain is living in all of us. It invites you to stand firm, to persevere and reach the top. But it also invites you to turn inward and mine your inner treasures, those diamonds that have been created under pressure. When you are connected to your inner Mountain, you are on the road from inspiration and you find the balance between Doing and Being.

In this blog I dive deeper into the archetypal meaning of the Mountain within us. Do you want to actively work with your inner Mountain yourself? Then join the Fantastic Friday Session in which this archetype is central. We will then look back on your past year through narrative exercises and look ahead to what will make your coming year successful.

The Mountain as an Archetype

The Mountain is an ancient symbol. In myths, fairy tales and other stories, it symbolizes the place where heaven and earth meet. It is the place where the hero gets his or her insight. It is the place where meaning and inspiration come together.

In the language of the archetypes, the Mountain embodies solidity, presence and durability. It invites you to grow, to overcome obstacles and to reach the top of your abilities. There is a clear message in that: You can only reach that top through effort.

Masculine and feminine in one

In your inner Mountain, the balance between your masculine and feminine energy is most clearly visible:

the Masculine side of the Mountain: clear goals, structured plan, turned towards the top and outwards;
the Feminine side of the Mountain: intuition, connection, rooted in the depth of the earth, turned inwards.

Every person, regardless of gender, carries both poles within them. All the time. The beauty of this archetype is that both poles are so clearly visible in one archetype. Even if you are not connected to your archetypal Mountain. The climb up requires focus, discipline and direction (the masculine energy), but also slowing down, intuition and surrendering to the bigger picture (the feminine energy). Only in their interplay do you find your true strength and reach the top.

The light side: Goal-oriented and meaningful

When you are connected to your inner Mountain, you feel firmness and clarity. This archetype helps you distinguish between what requires attention now and what is important in the longer term. It reminds you of your talents and of your limits.

The masculine power of the Mountain supports your decisiveness: the ability to focus, persevere and build on what you want to achieve. The feminine side gives wisdom and mildness: the ability to listen to what life wants to show you. Where you can rest. What you are allowed to receive.

In that balance, your Mountain is not hard or distant, but rather alive, breathing and energizing. If you know your inner wisdom and talents and combine them with your concrete steps in the outside world to achieve your goals, you will not lose your way. You don’t lose yourself in the delusion of the day. You don’t lose yourself in the pursuit of profit. You live in balance.

If you allow the Mountain in yourself, you:

- feel strength and confidence;
- stand firm without becoming rigid;
- will discover the diamonds that are hidden deep within you and that were (once) created under pressure;
- experience direction and space.

In narrative terms, the Mountain is a story about growth. Your personal growth in connection with the growth of the world around you. You climb, you rest, you sometimes descend again, maybe even fall into the abyss…. But again and again you discover new layers of meaning in the mountain journey you make.

The shadowside: being stuck at high altitudes or in deep valleys…

The archetypal Mountain, like any archetype, has a dark side.

If you live too strongly from the male energy, you only want to go up. You have only one goal: to reach that top as quick as possible. You chase results – often in the short term – without overseeing the long-term consequences. And in the end you feel arid and empty inside. You have lost the connection with your own soul.

If you get stuck in the feminine energy, you will keep on dreaming without taking action. You dream of that prince on that white horse, who comes to save you. You wait for the right moment, a sign, no idea. In any case, you don’t get moving. Or – another variant – you do everything at the same time without direction, without a clear goal, without a travelplan.

The balance between that masculine and feminine side of your inner Mountain makes the difference between striving and meaningful growth. The one-sided climb often ends in exhaustion or a feeling of emptiness (a burnout, being lost, depression). The archetypal Mountain then mirrors your own pride or running away from who you really are.

Winding path that rises and falls

The Valleys, the gorges, the gaps in your Mountain symbolize those moments in your life when you don’t know what to do anymore, or when you get blocked in something. They are part of the path of life. That may sound like a clincher. But if you look closely at any mountain, you will see that no path leads straight to the top.

In stories, the hero or heroine often descends into the underworld. This is not a con of failure or that something fails. It is actually part of your growth.

“The soul descends to remember who it is and why it wants to rise.” (James Hillman)

Looking back, harvesting and looking ahead

The archetypal Mountain is pre-eminently a good archetype to reflect on at the end of the (school) year. It invites you to stop and look back, but also to look ahead and plan the mountain hike to the next summit.

Your Mountain invites you to look back on your own journey of the past year. Where did you ascend, where did you have to descend? What diamonds did you find along the way?

If you want to look back on your archetypal Mountain, it helps to ask yourself the following archetypal questions:

Where was my top this year? When was that? What did I see when I was on top of that?
Into which gorges and deep valleys have I descended? What did I find there?
Where was I too hard or too soft, too goal-oriented or too dreaming and waiting?

Try to remember the moment as precisely and concretely as possible. In the stories that come up, you not only recognize your achievements, but also your value and inspiration.

Would you like to know more about how you can look back and look ahead through archetypes, or about working with archetypes in general? Then read these blogs of mine:

The next Mountain Hike: vision and anchoring

The look ahead invites you to imagine your Top for next year. What do you want this new year to symbolize in your development? What values do you want to embody?

Planning that next Mountain Hike therefore requires a number of masculine skills. Such as determining the base camp (your starting point), but also the camps you visit along the way. Call it businesslike: camp Q1, camp Q2 and camp Q3. These camps form the resting points along the way. Anchor points to determine for yourself throughout the year whether you are still on the right track. Or that you have lost your way to the top due to the issues of the day.

In those camps you gather strength, recalibrate your direction and restore the balance between the goal-oriented (masculine) and your inspiration (feminine). No management moments, but consciously chosen breaks for reconnection.

Your Inner Mountain as an Attitude for Balance

Your inner Mountain teaches you that true growth does not lie in working harder and thus trying to climb faster to the top. Your growth is in moving ‘wiser’. Moving with and from your own inner wisdom. The diamonds that are locked up in your archetypal Mountain. Your Mountain connects your highs with your lows, your decisiveness with your softness, your direction with your inspiration.

Your masculine energy builds, protects and reaches up. Your feminine energy cherishes, connects and gives meaning. Between the two, the balance unfolds that feeds your life, your work and your (personal) leadership.

If you are so connected to your inner Mountain, then the top of it is not only a symbol of achievement, but rather of wholeness and balance. Every step, every resting place, every descent brings you closer to who you really are. And that is the balance that takes you and the world further.

Have fun mountain hiking!

To be continued…

Frédérique te Dorsthorst – de Muij