"Ouch! It sure does take a lot of guts to do this." And you know what - the things our team learn and share a little on the blog about what it really takto live out a dream, do that daring thing, take a quest and try out for adventure is really worth your while reading if dream of a life less ordinary...
In the lead up to leaving, and even though this is my fifth trip now, and the 20th time I've been off on a Grand Adventure, I feel my own doubts and demons... will we have another earthquake (like in 2005 and 2007 when Peru was shaken to its ribcage), will there be avalanche (like 2005), will we all make it (like we always have except in 2006 when the team fell into tatters and we had to evac 2 girls with flu and despair), are all the logisitcs in place (10 donkeys booked, two horses, three down jackets, two bottles of vodka, eight kilos of coffee, buses, kayaks, bicycles, buses, light planes and rice milk ... all ticked off so far), transfers and hotels in the furtherst pockets of the wildest wild frontiers, (all co-ordinated from girls on top HQ out in the woody wildlands of sydney), what to pack (last year I arrived with a beret and a ballgown after a backpack flip-out .. but no high heels for tango .. doh!), are we really up to it? what about coming home? (will we be friends still? where will I live? ... how will life ever get back to NORMAL? )And is that what I really want anyway?) Am I good enough to lead this? Am I patient, calm, fit and wiley enough? Will there be anything left of the Amazon to conserve when we get there? .. and on it goes.
Gorgeous, ambitious, brave and rosey cheeked Chloe from Melbourne told me last week that at times she really didn't know why she had signed up! Pulling off a massive and glamorous night out in Melbourne, motivating people in business, with so much already overwhelming them, to join in, booking the talent, talking with the mighty Vixens of Melbourne netball fame who are coming along, and to Boost Juice's Janine Ellis who is keynoting, logisitcs for her casino tables, for booze and food, and advertising and graphic design, and her own dress for the night, and somebody to take care of the dogs, and getting up at 5am to train, and worrying about her dodgey knees, and sometimes feeling so alone and so inexperienced... there has been more than one crisis of doubt. But come Thursday night she will make her first milestone and see the fruits of all her hardwork become ripe ... for better or worse. It's tough stuff. It's the stuff of all the adventure novels.. it's all part of what it really takes to do something special .. to accept the impulse for goodness, and adventure, and stretching the limits ... and then making it all work out in the real world - which can sometimes seem to be so oblivious to our hopes and dreams.
I feel the tension and the fear of all of our Girls - that's nearly 30 women now who have taken the journey with us, and together raised $100,000!!!!! And I have to check in, as all leaders MUST, with the original vision to know why I have created this project, and why I trust that it is worth all the salt we shed in sweat, blood and tears along the way.
Tonight two things remind me. The first was watching Harry Potter's JK Rowling last night whose incredible journey began as an act of faith out of a desperate situation in life. It was only when she admitted that she had found herself in a real corner - single mother, homeless, jobless, depressed, sad and lonely, that she finally sat down to do what she had always dreamed of: write! And look what she gained when she honoured fate and destiny and passion and determination (... not to mention the 350 million+ who have loved the journey she wrote about.)...with pure grit and acceptance of the strange motivations of passion... which guarantees nothing, but promises it ALL!
The other are the words of Australian Aboriginal Elder and Activist Bob Rendell who was asked in the award-winning documentary, Kanyini, what he thought about life after his successes and failures in the world of human rights and teaching. He says in this incredible film that the cornerstones of all life-the things that make meaning for each of us are simply our belifef system - the world we believe in through spirituality, land and family. It's what he calls the living legacy of the Aboriginal people, the oldest living culture in the world. "The purpose of life," he said, "is to be with all that there is; the trees, the land, ceremony, each other - that's what important. We are connected to every living thing - and the proof of that is being alive. You life connects you to every other living thing; physically, mentally spiritually, psychically. The bush gives you a confidence of life you can never be trained in. It's the dialogue, the connection, the beauty of the wind, the flower, the rain. Connection, caring, responsibility, beauty, peace - those things ar a part of life, for every lizard, every tree, reptile and animal."
In my mind, after being in the mountains and the wilderness so long, it's absolutelty true. The reason for Girls on Top is not the summits, not the adventure of travel - but the chance to truly realise and learn the new awarenesses and ways of being that give us these things that ordinary modern life deny us every day - to be truly together, to understand and care for one another, to see the harmony of all living things wokring perfectly together, without conflict and stress, to feel community between our team, to experience for real the self confidence of walking and sleeping, waking and drinking, eating and washing in the totality, the beauty of the wild - the comfort of true community - the harmony of feeling at home in the world as it is.