Erosion: A Journey of Love and Grief

This piece was edited by Bennett Slavsky. Originally published in The Nunatak: A Voice of the Wild.

I never felt safer journeying into the unknown than with Maya—especially the unknown of falling in love. If ever there was the feeling that something was missing from my life, Maya banished it forever. What brought us together was a shared knowing, a truth that we are meant to be wild and free in the natural world, observing the infinite colors abound, sensing as much as we can, entangling ourselves in the magic living within the landscapes that have been changed by life, death, erosion, and growth since the great beginning. 

Maya and I lived to the same tune. We were ripe for adventure’s call, yet relished in the comfort of our quiet nesting. Climbing was the vehicle by which we loved the natural world. Moving intuitively, traveling, supporting each other wholeheartedly, and balancing presence, fear, and risk all the while. It was the craft our souls aligned with. To climb to the center of the universe—and to have found each other in the depths of such a quest—is the greatest gift of my life. A gift that encourages me to believe everything will be alright, to simply smile and help others smile, to live like I did while holding hands with Maya. 

Sunset on Fine Jade, Castle Valley, Novemeber 2021

Our days together began in the wild, enchanting Cochise Stronghold. We danced around our nightly fire as the wind howled through the granite chasms of the Dragoon Mountains, holding one another beneath the stars in a new bivy each night with our sleeping bags zipped together. We would watch the sunrise and sunset most days, our hearts beating to the rhythm of dawn and dusk, sun and moon rising. It was a dream I never knew could exist until I was living it. 

And of course we climbed a lot together. Maya was my rope gun, always eager for the crux pitch of anything, happy to know I would never contest her for it. I was just grateful to be there and that somehow I was lucky enough to be loved by Maya, to witness her values become that of a deeply rooted tree, connected to all else, aware of all beings, and passionate to grow beyond anyone I’d ever met. 

Maya and I (look closely) high on the Rockfellow Dome, Cochise Stronghold - Maya's birthday March 29 2021

Cochise became one of Maya's favorite climbing destinations, known for its bold - aesthetic nature

We shared an idyllic dream of what a lover could be that balanced silliness and depth. We were relentlessly inspiring for one another, heartfully communicative, unconditionally supportive, and passionate adventure companions. We often sought out the coldest water we could find to plunge in, knowing the discomfort would be worth the presence and aliveness. Maya loved reading aloud to me as we dried in the sunshine, skin tingling and numb. We were learning how to love, accepting our apprenticeships to the practice, and creating space to share our paths. 

Maya smiling and psyched in the Wind River Range on Driese-Kehoe,

This was Maya's and I's last alpine climbing trip together, August 12 2022

But the dream we found ourselves in abruptly shattered. The mountains that brought us to love each other and inspired us to be alive took Maya away to another place, only reachable in the landscape of my heart. Now I am left to find my way, to begin a new era without Maya, and often wonder how she would be doing if our fates had been switched, if I had fallen instead. 

Dante’s words found me: “In the middle of the road of our life, I awoke in a dark wood, where the way was wholly lost.” My best friend and mate died. The dream that felt permanent is suddenly no more. My heart began eroding with Maya’s absence, but somehow my soul knew the way, like walking with an old friend into the night I was brought to her. 

How does one grieve something so profoundly life changing? So uncomfortably painful? I feel the grief of the world all in one moment: the cataclysms that leave millions without family or home, the genocides happening currently and for time immemorial, the destruction of the Earth for our anthropocentric misunderstandings, and all other pain bodies I’m unaware of like a stormcloud hiding beyond the horizon. How many other people are wondering how they’re going to make it at this moment? The loss of Maya is utterly devastating. I realize the truth of grief as an integral piece to the human experience. It requires a great letting go. An acceptance of loss. A quieting of who I thought I was and an acceptance of who I am becoming. And an asking for help from Mother Earth and all the people who love me. 

Maya at the base of Idiot Wind, Lumpy Ridge, one of my last days climbing with Maya - August 23, 2022

Music of the Weminuche

One month after Maya’s accident I was called to the Weminuche, a vibrant expanse of mountainous wilderness in Southern Colorado. The Weminuche held me for four days and nights, as it held Maya and I earlier that summer on our wanderings. Maya forgot her sandals on that trip and opted to go barefoot for a week of hiking and running, smiling all the while, even laughing when a shard of glass found its way into her foot. A laugh and smile I love dearly. The memory was pulsing as I felt the shard of glass pierce its way into my heart, my chest swelled as I approached the gate that begins the Los Pinos trail, and I knew at that moment this is where I needed to be. I was held tenderly by my tribe the previous month, communally grieving with friends and family, and was supported each day by those who love me most. But it became clear I needed to go out into the Weminuche and grieve unconditionally, to kiss a memory of Maya from the summer when we loved each other through the San Juan Mountains. I wept as my hand reached for the gate, opened it, and stepped through. 

Maya and I in the Weminuche, June 2022

The weeping continued as I walked into the golden Aspens, letting my gaze catch each remaining wildflower and fungal fruiting body as the smell of fall filled my chest. A birdsong carried me onward. It was beautiful, like Maya. A few miles and my rhythm built to a song, breathing intentionally, crying and noticing all I could sense, and eventually arriving upon a river bend where Maya and I skinny dipped and ate snacks, in love. I opened a box of sardines in honor of my Lovebug; they were delicious. 

Talking out to Maya, I sensed the depth of the well that held my tears, infinite as the river in front of me and the wind blowing through me. As I sat upon the riverbank memories and emotions swam downstream, stopping and swirling, and then slipping away. The pain was too much to bear. I had to keep moving. Heart swelling, I packed up, kissed the ground, and cried as I made it back to the trail that pulled me. 

Love Nest in the Weminuche, June 2022

Walking was healing, my soul awakening and grief journeying, memories and feelings, thoughts and heartache, one step and another, all the while approaching Maya and I’s basecamp we had set up along the river. The day was in slow motion, like the yellow aspen leaves dancing to the ground from the treetops, and I felt clearly that I had nowhere to be but here, unattached to what had become of my life. I turned for the love nest—as Maya and I called it—and walked through an open field to the river, falling to my knees sobbing. Our sanctuary just as it was when Maya was there. Oh, how far I was from that warm memory. Sounds of grief escaped me on that darkening day. 

My hands filled with soil, my face in the earth, reaching for Maya, unable to accept this truth… The river that cleansed our naked bodies, the trees swaying that held our hammock where Maya read to me and nuzzled her head on my chest, and the granite block we leaned on to eat breakfast and dinner, all continuing to be as if nothing had changed. But so much had changed. My Lovebug was gone, and my fulfilled existence went with her. It was too much, I had to keep walking, the wound too deep, too painful, grief finding its way through me. I smoked my first spliff since Maya’s passing; I needed help from two of my plant guides. Maya’s satchel from India around my shoulder held the ingredients, and I burned Mojave Desert Sage that Maya and I foraged together and Palo Santo from Maya’s personal collection as I hummed to my love. 

A few miles later I set camp in a grassy nook on a hillside overlooking the beautiful valley around me, orange and pink clouds staining the darkening blue sky. Dusk has a way of settling, of dimming the brightness of the day, a quieting of noise and thought, deepening color, opening a doorway to the soul. I began the mindful practice of bowdrilling, the ancient magic of fire starting, and remembered back to Maya’s ceremony of life when I last created an embering coal with her image dense in my vision space. I could feel her heartbeat, the warmth of her touch, her image turning to light, an orb of energy always with me. And I returned to hand on bow, spindle beneath toprock, foot on fireboard, friction, heat, love, Maya, oh my sweet Maya, my love… and smoke began to take shape, ember burning, Sage punk glowing, Why does it smell so lovely? Carefully, I transferred that earthen coal to a fluffy nest of dried Juniper, blowing softly like a morning breeze, loving all the while as flames burst in my hand, and my fire house that awaited its life ignited with ease. I drank Willow tea, another one of my guides, and played music to Maya, finding my voice that wished more than anything to sing to her, and welcomed the sorrow that filled my veins. 

At sunrise I saw Eagle flying low in the valley above the river, guiding me toward the deeper thread of being here, one that would take a few days to see clearly. Maya and I never walked the trail I was turning on, relieving me of the sharp pain of memory’s sword. The miles drifted under Aspen canopies until I was beneath a massive granite dome, separated from the resounding mountainside, vertical white sparkling stone. I found my way beneath the obvious temple, waded Flint Creek, and made camp nestled in a grove of Willow. Each break I took that day to pause and observe I felt sorrow’s well pull up another load of tears, feeling closer and closer to some peak of grief. I ran around barefoot as Maya would have, exploring my surroundings, arriving, and took a nap. I was empowered by doing everything alone, ready to leave the village that held me and listen to my grief intimately. I bowdrilled another fire and stayed up late drinking Rose, Tulsi, and more Willow, expanding my heart with each sip. The singing really began this night in a new way, a deep voice, an ancient tone came through me as I praised Maya and sang my heart to her. And I knew where I must go the following day to sing even louder, closer to the sky, closer to Maya: the summit of Pope’s Nose above me. 

Approaching the Pope's Nose in the Weminuche, November 2022

The water froze that night. My sleeping bag was covered in a cold dew with no tarp above me, but my mission was set and I worked hard to get tea going before the sun rose above the mountainside. I knew of a descent trail that involved some easy scrambling and figured I’d find my way, trusting this is where I needed to be. All went smoothly as I climbed a steep talus field among an Aspen forest, rocks that once were a part of the great stone above me, now fallen and fractured. I found my way to the exposed scrambling, my first time climbing since Maya’s accident. It was vulnerable but also powerful, and my first taste of guilt as I imagined falling to my death, knowing the pain I would cause those that love me. Breathing intentionally I found love and released all else, climbing to the summit one move at a time. 

The view was magical, breathtaking. I was crying the moment I arrived. Deep tears came to me unencumbered, flowing free to my love for Maya, knowing she would love it up here. I began to sing and sing, singing and chanting, opening to it all, flying to the sun as it soared across the sky, moon resting to the West and balancing the heavens, tears flowing South with my voice to the river far below. Remembering all the high places we shared together, all the moments of thinking to myself, “I am the luckiest human alive,” and now this pain, this loss, this cataclysm. Once again time evaporated, I was a channel open to the multitude of life and death, seeing it all too clearly now and wondering how to go on with such truth of our fragility. 

The valley was glowing as Aspens danced among the sunshine. I was sitting on top of the world, grieving as I never knew I could, opening my heart to all. I painted a water color as I saw Maya in the mountains curled on her side looking into my blue yellow eyes that she stared in so many times before, and wrote a letter to my love, leaving both and a spliff in the summit box for her. The ancient knowing of grief reached for me, nudging me to listen, whispering the way, encouraging me to release and connect deeply. The thought of Maya being gone from my life was too much to take in any one breath, pushing me toward an edge that was too uncomfortable to balance on, too intense to maintain, and so my soul’s compass guided me toward and away from The Wild Edge of Sorrow, as Francis Weller names it.

An ultimate realization in this grief is that there is nowhere to be but here. Nothing but this moment exists. This edge has become my home, and there is nothing to do but embrace it, to explore it like I would any new home. All the aspirations I had in my tiny existence felt hollow, empty of meaning, and now I am carrying the weight of truth as my legs are straining beneath the new load. How can it be that the rivers still flow? How can it be that no one else sees what I see at this moment? Feels what I feel? Am I alone in this knowing? Am I alone in grief? And as if to answer my question, Hawk soared in an arch much like that of a shooting star across the sky, staring at me atop a seldomly climbed peak, mystery revealing magic slowly to me as I listened more.  

Golden Aspens of the Weminuche

The day passed by as the sun made its routine journey home. Hawk flew into the horizon showing me it was time to depart, and I was left changed from when I arrived, unsure of what really happened up there. After a day in the sky I was ready to return to the depths of the valley, relieved and light-footed. The down climb felt like a blink of time, and I was beneath the Pope’s Nose in the golden Aspens. Before dropping down the fallen talus toward camp I was called to eat the healing fruit our Earth has to give. I found a cozy nest of soil and leaves, and ate psilocybin mushrooms, continuing to let go of all expectations for this grief. 

Unconditional love flooded my senses as Mother Earth held me, telling me: “Everything will be alright.” Visions of Maya and I spirited in and around me. We were together, as we always would be. Visions of our children that won’t be born laughing, of our home that won’t be built warm and welcoming, of us holding each other closely as everything else that exists vanishes beyond our love. And I return to the Aspen forest once again, in the moment, inhaling and exhaling, crying for help, reaching for love. I am but a child of the Earth, one with Eagle and Hawk, with Aspen and Willow, and now I must find a way to live as a child of the Earth does: wholeheartedly and unabashedly myself. I am never alone, nor will I be. 

Maya and I in the Winds, August 2022

The return journey was upon me. I hiked back to camp for another long night beneath the stars, bowdrilling a fire to keep my fingers warm for picking the ukulele. Subdued beside the fire as I reflected on the day, I was elevated out of my body on the summit, surrendered, conjoining with soul in song, followed by a divine grounding in the space between this world and the underworld. Eventually quiet and meditating by the fire I felt content and easeful. Darkness beyond the light of small flames and glittering stars, I drifted to sleep as my mind quieted for the first time since being in the Weminuche.

When I awoke it was snowing and raining, thunder and lightning beginning their performance in the night. I jumped up to put a rain fly over me and hunkered down until sunrise. Dawn slowed the storm and I began my journey out of the Weminuche. Before crossing Flint Creek I played music soulfully like the storm upon me, fingers rolling like gray clouds, teetering between soft and hard notes on the strings like the rains, building and releasing, with Maya there all the while, beautiful and lovely. Music has always been a special release for me, and I would play for Maya often. I set an intention before crossing the water before me, that I would bring Maya with me wherever my feet went, that I would live for her and seek love, that I would howl like the wolves whenever I felt alive. And I left behind any expectations I had for my life or grief, trusting that my path would guide me to where I needed to go. 

The storm in my heart reflected the storm in the sky. It was building throughout the day as I approached our love nest, and I was unsure if I’d have the strength to stay the night because it was too intense before. My feet streamed down the valley as I was invigorated by thunder and lightning in the mountains, sensing an ancient connection to something much more powerful than myself. My arrival to Maya and I’s sanctuary was similar to a few days before. I collapsed to the ground sobbing, knees digging into the soil. But I felt stronger. I felt closer to Maya. I felt more capable of carrying the pain. I decided to stay the night knowing it is what must be done, embracing the beautiful memories of Maya and I entwined in this magical wilderness. 

The storm grew to a chaotic wildness, blue flashes filling shadows in the forest, thunder shaking my bones, the power of the heavens coming down on me. A twinge of fear rose the hair on my neck, knowing I was there to stay for the evening. I built a solid shelter, so I was in my own semi-dry world compared to the realm beyond and relaxed in my warm sleeping bag. I was reading The Wild Edge of Sorrow when I came across a piece of writing that speaks to the sorrows of the world, of the Anima Mundi, and it rocked my heart like I was a small ship at sea in this mighty storm:

“What if it is the grief of the forest registering in our bodies and psyches—the sorrow of the redwoods, voles, sorrel, ferns, owls and deer, all those who lost their homes and lives as a result of this plunder of living beings? What if we are not separate from the world at all? It is our spiritual responsibility to acknowledge these losses. What if this is the Anima Mundi, the soul of the world, weeping through us?”

The grief of the soul of the world was abundantly present in Maya. She knew, she saw, she loved… I see Maya in love with all life, so sensitive to it all, aware of Anima Mundi and living in connection with it. I wept and wept in our nest, seeing now what she was always trying to show me, always acknowledging the beauty of each mushroom and flower, plant and animal, sunset and river, slowing to the pace needed to listen, dedicating her life to healing the wounds of this Earth by noticing and loving. 

Maya foraging our dinner

I went to the river, darkness broken by flashes of light, whitewater rushing over stone filling my eardrums, unable to distinguish my tears from the rain on my face. I called to the soul of the river, I sang to it, and gave thanks. I called to the soul of the Earth, honoring it, thanking it for holding me, and asking it for guidance. I felt a surge of sorrow and grief, tears flowing with the river, and I felt the oneness of myself and the river, I saw what Maya saw, and I saw Maya in it all. I felt her presence carrying me back to the riverbank where I was in my body, crying and crying, my everlasting grief emerging. Joining with my grief for Maya was my grief for the whole world, my grief for not being good enough, for fearing judgment, for not accepting my soul to shine, for childhood memories of me crying… and I sobbed into the night, always returning to visions of Maya, wave after wave of sorrow swelling my chest. 

Who am I? I asked while looking out onto the river. Tears continued to merge with the rain on my stone cheeks. I flashbacked to that dark night when Maya left me, whereupon pain crumpled my naked being on the cold concrete of Maya and I’s home. Trembling, it felt that spiders were crawling between my skin and bones, I found strength to consider that this could be the end for me. My fear of losing Maya in the mountains is my new reality. She is gone and I’m wishing I could go with her, taken from this world as I knew it on that dark night. Submerged into black emptiness, held beneath the surface by the weight of death, dark green shadows swirled around my curled body, suspended underwater, senses drowning, a quiet realm of darkness. My arms were outstretched, reaching for someone or something, but I was sinking farther from the glimmering light above. Sinking was comforting compared to the pain of breathing without Maya. There at least I was free to be nothing and nobody, free to let grief take me to its depths. Time evaporated as I was pulled deeper and the light faded ever more.

Stripped of my identities and attachments in an instant, I am given the truth of our fragile existence: that we all will die, that I could die in this moment, that every achievement I’ve ever accomplished will be forgotten about in the blip of this epoch we live in. It feels relieving to be so certain, to know such truth intimately. Loved ones' faces pass through my vision and I sense a need to survive this. I sense that everything will be alright if I ask Maya for help. Maya, my Lovebug, smiling and swaying in an eternal light, brown hair blowing in the wind as she twirls among yellow and purple and pink wildflowers, a white dress with blooming flowers reaching to the sun, the dress she told me she would wear on our wedding day. Her green hazel eyes reflecting the sun’s rays onto me, and it feels somehow more infinite and powerful than the space I am sinking toward. I am pulled to the surface to Maya, to love, to the warmth of her body. A part of me is still drowning, but Maya reaches out to hold me, to love me, to bring me back to life. And I returned to the midnight darkness in the Weminuche, blue shadows filling the open spaces around me, rapids churning. Overwhelmed by the magnitude of grief within, but learning to sit with it. Eventually yawns began to break up the crying as I made my way back to my sleeping bag. 

I dreamt of Maya. I was sitting on a couch in a dark room with Maya’s head in my lap. A warm lamp illuminating her face. We were merging into oneness as we lived in each other's eyes, but there was an awareness of confusion, something was wrong, it felt like we couldn’t be together although we were together in this moment. In an instant my psyche caught up. Maya was in my dream world, but gone from my physical world. I became aware that she would not lay her head in my lap again and that it is entirely up to me to keep her close and alive in me. To live so Maya can see through my eyes and feel through my touch. To live as Maya is teaching me to live: the most important thing in this life is love and to let go of all else, that everyday is another gift to be alive and acknowledge beauty, and that death is all part of the dance. 

My grief brought me somewhere new, and while I still felt the infinite well of sorrow, I also felt I created space to fully grieve, and underwent a ceremony of grief that ended in an immense gratitude of life. My journey onward from this ceremony will be rooted in my willingness to be open to what comes, to accept grief and the discomfort of it, and to acknowledge gratitude. This gratitude surprised me. It snuck up on me, balancing the pain with something worth living for. Maya never fully left me, our connection beyond the physical, her smile unforgettable. 

The sun did shine in the Weminuche the next morning and I felt its warmth upon my skin. I made a shrine of puffballs and wildflowers, plucking the strings of my instrument once more before leaving, singing out to Maya. My gratitude for Mother Earth growing, I felt inspired to follow Maya’s soul into the greater soul of all, into Anima Mundi, and to accept the song my soul yearns to sing, smiling and helping others smile. 

The Path to Love: Highlining Above the Valley 

Highlining into the sunset high above Queenstown, New Zealand, 120m January 2023

It’s hard to know what to do when one’s life changes so drastically. I couldn’t imagine returning to climbing in those earlier days. All I could think about was Maya when I looked to the mountains that brought us together. Everything reminded me of her. Eating, resting, and moving my body were the simple tasks I gave myself when I could find the strength. Though eventually I was called to pursue aliveness again, to find a way of life that would be quieting but also engaging, and to hold connection with Maya while venturing out into the wild. 

Maya is especially close to me when I feel alive, wishing more than anything to share these moments with her in the flesh. I am pushed to acknowledge there is no going back. I am to prioritize the truth coming through me in this grief as my compass. To listen to the mystery of being alive with full attention. 

I’ve discovered that grief is an erosion. An eroding, a carving through the bedrock of our souls. Some grief is subtle as a trickling spring, some shallow or deep as a river, and some grief is  glacial: creeping, crawling, unmoving… tension-building, whispering and then screaming, solid and then broken, eroding, eroding, eroding… chiseling narrow veins as a lightning storm over the great plains of the landscape of my heart. I look out upon the mountains before me and see Maya and myself in them, valleys carved and overgrown with life, water flowing as the elixir of it all, but ultimately changed by an erosion of what once was and no longer is, a clear vision of the lesson impermanence has to teach. 

Maya in her happy place, the alpine of the Wind River Range

So how does one even begin to make sense of it all? What’s the meaning of anything if it can all be taken away, changed so instantly? What do I do now that I see the truth of what matters in this life? That most of anything I’ve ever worried about or thought mattered actually doesn’t matter at all, and that we create the meaning of each new moment as they come—the only thing that actually exists. Knowing that everything I love will change one day, will die one day. That impermanence in life pushes us to love unconditionally, to be the best we can be in this moment, to acknowledge the magic of now and the temporariness of everything. Like all the music I’ve ever created, this knowledge encourages me to play this song like it is the last I will ever strum, or to climb this mountain like it is the last adventure I will ever have. There is an urgency to our depth of living when we sit with our own immortality. And a buried question sprouts to the surface: What would Maya be doing if she could be here?  

Looking back on the many adventures I shared with Maya, I realize the potency of being with another human that I love in a beautiful place. How simple it can be. In those moments there was nothing else to do in this life, I had made it to the peak of my existence. It is so clear to me now. But I never really acknowledged that I might lose Maya. I didn’t understand that I had arrived and there was nowhere else to get to. What kept me from seeing this before Maya’s death? Why did she have to die for me to learn this? And even now as I painfully digest this wisdom it is not guaranteed I will bring it with me. It is a practice to live intentionally, to acknowledge beauty and act with love. It is a commitment to the journey of inner peace, of releasing expectations from everything. It is a way of living we are not commonly taught. There is an unlearning that must occur to fully be free in this way of being. 

Visions and memories continue to weave the thread of my life while tears stream down the window to my heart. Do I cast my faith upon this web of life to hold me and show me the way? Where do I go? What should I do? My heart knows the truth, seated in an orb of consciousness that reaches out to touch, to listen, to be… the truth that it doesn’t matter where I go or what I do, that all will be alright. I am scared to let go, yet here I have arrived where it is my only option, to surrender to the truth that control is beyond me, that life continues on with or without me, that I can be love in this moment and that is meaningful. Who am I? I am love, I am love, I am love. All else follows. Love is where I am, love is where I am going, love is what I am to do with this life, smiling and helping others smile, believing everything will be alright. What can I love in this moment? As Ram Daas guides us: 

“Quiet the mind, Open the heart. How do you quiet the mind? You meditate. How do you open the heart? You start to love that which you can love and just keep expanding it. You love a tree, you love a river, you love a leaf, you love a flower, you love a cat, you love a human. But go deeper and deeper into that love. Until you love that which is the source of the light behind all things.” 

Highlining on the Moai, Tasmania, 70m January 2024

Grief is not something to get through, or figure out, but rather an acceptance and building of a relationship with something uncomfortable. It’s not something I’m doing well at nor can it really be, there is no blueprint to follow or problem to solve, it is a state of being that guides us with pain ebbing and flowing. We either listen to it or we don’t. Grief is a halting of everything in our life, a potential superpower that can push us to radically accept ourselves and our own death. I begin to understand that feeling sorrow is a pathway to feeling love, that gratitude is abundant when grief becomes acknowledged. But it is painful. It is far from living light-heartedly. It is thus that makes our grief something to avoid. It will never go away. It is always there. It sleeps in the warmth of our blood, bathes in our tears, and feeds upon our pain. And I wonder how essential this is to being human? That we will all have to learn this in our own time and in our own way. And that we all must learn to carry the load of loss while continuing to live with a smile. 

I cherish the sunny desert memories in Cochise when I was giving Maya slacklining lessons, falling in love each day, her hand in mine as I supported her in balancing, and Maya laughing and being frustrated when she would fall off. I was so attracted to how free Maya was. How easy it was for her to be her true self. 

The most freeing form of slacklining is highlining: slacklining at height surrounded by exposure. Maya never highlined, but I know she would have loved it fully. I started highlining a couple months before Maya’s accident and was pulled to it as time went on, something my soul was awakening to, much like climbing in the beginning. It was the only space I could find that brought me to life in those dark months of fall and winter, and I became determined to highline to the center of the universe, healing all the while. 

Highlining in the Black Hills at sunset, 330m July 2024

It seems that we need something to help carry us into love for life like a banjo roll. Something to be excited about, to have the sense that this wild chance of life has meaning. Highlining became a way out of my mind, into my body and nature, and ultimately freed me to find meaning when darkness was the easiest place to rest. 

The highline is wavering in the wind. I tie into the leash and scoot out, straddling one-inch webbing, keeping me from falling. A void is ahead and suddenly all around me. Tense muscles teetering for balance, my heart is thumping. I am free in this breath, in this space. Mountains fill the horizon, dark silhouettes against bright sky, in and out of awareness of exposure, of the empty air, a taste of inner peace in my dry mouth. Peregrine gliding below me. I feel gravity driving my right buttcheek into the slackline while I observe the symphony of nature: Swift spinning, Vulture soaring, dark river flowing, green mossy boulders, white puffy clouds crawling, blue sky, yellow sunlight brushing green leaves in wind. I sense the depth of breath I am breathing in. It is a breath shared with everything I am witnessing. I hear Maya’s voice nudge my heart, “I am proud of you,” and begin to cry, knowing she is with me in this new way. Letting her presence in, the light I have learned to know as Maya is bright and loving. An unexpected smiling of my heart pushes me to stand above the webbing, stand above my pain, stand above my fear, stand into love, stand into life. I am above the line and in a state of awe, all is sparkling, gratitude flowing, I begin to walk a wiggling line. My eyes are wide with color, shoulders engage and the light of my core centers. I am scared of falling. It is weightless out here, quiet in my mind. Maya returns like a ribbon in the wind, I miss her so much. She reaches out with her hand as if inviting me to dance, I lean off the line and dive into the emptiness. The feeling of falling is short lived and my leash engages, my figure eight knot tightens as it has so many times before. I am held. 

Highlining in Red Rock, 420m October 2023

Color is crisp on the line, like putting glasses on for the first time I can see the texture of everything, can feel a heartbeat within and beyond me, sensing a way of being that is infinite and alive as the ocean, breathing in gratitude with each pulse of emotion, floating afar from land as the moon and sun, an island in the sky, a sojourn into Eagle’s eye above the valley. I am Awake. I am Alive. I am Here. I am Breathing In. I am Breathing Out. I am Love. Nothing else exists, not even the ego’s idea of me, of my grief, of my pain, of my life. I am light, just as Maya is, just as the river below is, just as Butterfly upon my shoulder is. And I continue to learn that each day is another chance to let go of what doesn’t matter, to find life and love in this moment, to sail out into the ocean I am sensing. I see how the erosion of mountains and valleys gives life to so many, I see the cycle of life and death clearly, I see the erosion of this glacial grief carving a new stream out of the bedrock of my soul for all to drink from. 

Though I acknowledge this erosion is painful and unwanted, I am called to hold on. I am called to share with others. I am called to be alive and let Maya guide me to oneness with all. A life of abundance and gratitude begins to be revealed from the erosion as I release control and listen. I can hear Maya laughing as I have so many times before, and I miss her with all of my being. 

Home Sweet Acadia, 90m September 2023

Maya, my love

the wilting flower

weathers its pain of blooming

my heart aches always