When Mountains Speak: Hiking with Popocatépetl
March, 2017
The rumbling began an hour into my hike, somewhere between the tall straw grass and the dirt road that wound across the Mexican mountainside. Knowing Popocatépetl to be active, I listened carefully for direction and distance. When the sound seemed both far and dispersed, I decided it was only a storm—nothing urgent, nothing to fear. How wrong I was about the nature of what was coming.
I had started that morning in Tepoztlán, as I began every day of solo travel: with self-reflection, reading, and thoughts of the distant future over coffee. The decision to take the scenic route up the mountain pass to Puebla was spontaneous, as was the impulse to stop when I glimpsed a groomed trailhead out of the corner of my eye. Sometimes the most profound experiences begin with such small diversions from our planned paths.
The wide, well-groomed trail ended quickly into a car-sized hole that had been intentionally cut. Unperturbed, I marshaled on and up the now subtle path. Forests and tall straw grass kept me company until the road wound across the mountainside and vistas of Valle de Mexico began stealing my attention, cloudy though they were. As I walked, my mind turned to the crisis engulfing our world—the crumbling Western institutions, the approaching calamity of climate change, the Boomers steering us toward disaster with their institutional cynicism born in the 1960s.
These were the thoughts occupying me when I began looking for a stopping point. The afternoon had grown late, and I had no inclination to be caught in a storm. Up ahead, a steep hill led to a ridge that seemed like a reasonable endpoint. I tucked my pants into my socks, donned my jacket, and ventured into the tall grass.
Reaching the ridge, I found myself staring straight at Mount Popocatépetl, shrouded in clouds that covered the sky like a dark blanket. At once, it struck me that I should kneel. The impulse arrived not from conscious thought but from some deeper, automatic response—like breathing, both aware and unaware simultaneously. Then, in the absolute solitude of the mountain’s shadow, came the thought that I should meditate with the sacred AUM chant dedicated to this place where ancient generations had worshipped.
There, kneeling on an ashy path lined by straw grass fields under a volcano revered through millennia, I began to chant, focusing on the vibrations as I always did in that style of meditation. I was oblivious to the mini hail that had begun pouring over me until I opened my eyes, half dazed.
There are moments in life that play out in cinematic fashion. Sometimes we are too busy to notice. Sometimes, we are too cynical to appreciate it. But other times, we find ourselves in just the right place at just the right time and are open enough to receive the experience as a gift that shapes our soul. Opening my eyes, I was so lucky.
The clouds opened—but only around Popocatépetl, revealing the sacred peak in the midst of a perfect storm. As the mountain revealed itself, the hail softened, and I was overcome. Tears poured from my eyes with a force I couldn't control. I felt the extraordinary humility of receiving a gift I had neither the audacity to imagine nor the cynicism to doubt.
I closed my eyes, and my mind raced to distant places. In that moment, I saw the next crisis—not as abstraction but as visceral reality. I saw the suffering that would ensue from climate catastrophe. The water swallowing people, cities disappearing beneath waves and fires. And, I knew it to be truth. It wasn't prophecy in any mystical sense, but rather the mountain showing me what my rational mind already knew but my heart had refused to fully accept.
Mountains have always been places where humans seek perspective. We climb them to see farther, to escape the myopia of daily life, to touch something eternal. But sometimes, if we approach with the right combination of openness and accident, they offer us more than views. They become teachers, mirrors, oracles—not because they possess consciousness, but because in their presence, we access parts of our own consciousness usually buried beneath the noise of modern life.
That day on Popocatépetl, I experienced what indigenous peoples have always known: that certain places on Earth serve as conductors for deeper understanding. Whether we attribute this to energy fields, psychological projection, or simply the power of natural beauty to crack open the human heart, the effect remains the same. We are changed.
I stayed on that ridge until the storm passed, until my tears dried, until the profound became ordinary again. The hike down was quiet, contemplative. By the time I reached my car, the experience had already begun to feel dreamlike, as such experiences do when we try to cage them in memory.
What stayed with me wasn't the drama of the moment but its message. We are living through a time of unprecedented crisis, and most of us sleepwalk through it, distracted by the immediate, the profitable, the comfortable. It takes something dramatic—a mountain opening its clouded heart—to shake us into awareness.
I've returned to cities and boardrooms,. But I carry that moment with me: the reminder that Earth itself is trying to wake us up, if only we could learn to listen. Every rumble, every storm, every moment when the clouds part to reveal something sacred—these are not supernatural events but natural ones, calling us back to our proper relationship with this planet.
The question isn't whether mountains speak. The question is whether we're willing to kneel and listen when they do.
March, 2017
The rumbling began an hour into my hike, somewhere between the tall straw grass and the dirt road that wound across the Mexican mountainside. Knowing Popocatépetl to be active, I listened carefully for direction and distance. When the sound seemed both far and dispersed, I decided it was only a storm—nothing urgent, nothing to fear. How wrong I was about the nature of what was coming.
I had started that morning in Tepoztlán, as I began every day of solo travel: with self-reflection, reading, and thoughts of the distant future over coffee. The decision to take the scenic route up the mountain pass to Puebla was spontaneous, as was the impulse to stop when I glimpsed a groomed trailhead out of the corner of my eye. Sometimes the most profound experiences begin with such small diversions from our planned paths.
The wide, well-groomed trail ended quickly into a car-sized hole that had been intentionally cut. Unperturbed, I marshaled on and up the now subtle path. Forests and tall straw grass kept me company until the road wound across the mountainside and vistas of Valle de Mexico began stealing my attention, cloudy though they were. As I walked, my mind turned to the crisis engulfing our world—the crumbling Western institutions, the approaching calamity of climate change, the Boomers steering us toward disaster with their institutional cynicism born in the 1960s.
These were the thoughts occupying me when I began looking for a stopping point. The afternoon had grown late, and I had no inclination to be caught in a storm. Up ahead, a steep hill led to a ridge that seemed like a reasonable endpoint. I tucked my pants into my socks, donned my jacket, and ventured into the tall grass.
Reaching the ridge, I found myself staring straight at Mount Popocatépetl, shrouded in clouds that covered the sky like a dark blanket. At once, it struck me that I should kneel. The impulse arrived not from conscious thought but from some deeper, automatic response—like breathing, both aware and unaware simultaneously. Then, in the absolute solitude of the mountain’s shadow, came the thought that I should meditate with the sacred AUM chant dedicated to this place where ancient generations had worshipped.
There, kneeling on an ashy path lined by straw grass fields under a volcano revered through millennia, I began to chant, focusing on the vibrations as I always did in that style of meditation. I was oblivious to the mini hail that had begun pouring over me until I opened my eyes, half dazed.
There are moments in life that play out in cinematic fashion. Sometimes we are too busy to notice. Sometimes, we are too cynical to appreciate it. But other times, we find ourselves in just the right place at just the right time and are open enough to receive the experience as a gift that shapes our soul. Opening my eyes, I was so lucky.
The clouds opened—but only around Popocatépetl, revealing the sacred peak in the midst of a perfect storm. As the mountain revealed itself, the hail softened, and I was overcome. Tears poured from my eyes with a force I couldn't control. I felt the extraordinary humility of receiving a gift I had neither the audacity to imagine nor the cynicism to doubt.
I closed my eyes, and my mind raced to distant places. In that moment, I saw the next crisis—not as abstraction but as visceral reality. I saw the suffering that would ensue from climate catastrophe. The water swallowing people, cities disappearing beneath waves and fires. And, I knew it to be truth. It wasn't prophecy in any mystical sense, but rather the mountain showing me what my rational mind already knew but my heart had refused to fully accept.
Mountains have always been places where humans seek perspective. We climb them to see farther, to escape the myopia of daily life, to touch something eternal. But sometimes, if we approach with the right combination of openness and accident, they offer us more than views. They become teachers, mirrors, oracles—not because they possess consciousness, but because in their presence, we access parts of our own consciousness usually buried beneath the noise of modern life.
That day on Popocatépetl, I experienced what indigenous peoples have always known: that certain places on Earth serve as conductors for deeper understanding. Whether we attribute this to energy fields, psychological projection, or simply the power of natural beauty to crack open the human heart, the effect remains the same. We are changed.
I stayed on that ridge until the storm passed, until my tears dried, until the profound became ordinary again. The hike down was quiet, contemplative. By the time I reached my car, the experience had already begun to feel dreamlike, as such experiences do when we try to cage them in memory.
What stayed with me wasn't the drama of the moment but its message. We are living through a time of unprecedented crisis, and most of us sleepwalk through it, distracted by the immediate, the profitable, the comfortable. It takes something dramatic—a mountain opening its clouded heart—to shake us into awareness.
I've returned to cities and boardrooms,. But I carry that moment with me: the reminder that Earth itself is trying to wake us up, if only we could learn to listen. Every rumble, every storm, every moment when the clouds part to reveal something sacred—these are not supernatural events but natural ones, calling us back to our proper relationship with this planet.
The question isn't whether mountains speak. The question is whether we're willing to kneel and listen when they do.
March, 2017
The rumbling began an hour into my hike, somewhere between the tall straw grass and the dirt road that wound across the Mexican mountainside. Knowing Popocatépetl to be active, I listened carefully for direction and distance. When the sound seemed both far and dispersed, I decided it was only a storm—nothing urgent, nothing to fear. How wrong I was about the nature of what was coming.
I had started that morning in Tepoztlán, as I began every day of solo travel: with self-reflection, reading, and thoughts of the distant future over coffee. The decision to take the scenic route up the mountain pass to Puebla was spontaneous, as was the impulse to stop when I glimpsed a groomed trailhead out of the corner of my eye. Sometimes the most profound experiences begin with such small diversions from our planned paths.
The wide, well-groomed trail ended quickly into a car-sized hole that had been intentionally cut. Unperturbed, I marshaled on and up the now subtle path. Forests and tall straw grass kept me company until the road wound across the mountainside and vistas of Valle de Mexico began stealing my attention, cloudy though they were. As I walked, my mind turned to the crisis engulfing our world—the crumbling Western institutions, the approaching calamity of climate change, the Boomers steering us toward disaster with their institutional cynicism born in the 1960s.
These were the thoughts occupying me when I began looking for a stopping point. The afternoon had grown late, and I had no inclination to be caught in a storm. Up ahead, a steep hill led to a ridge that seemed like a reasonable endpoint. I tucked my pants into my socks, donned my jacket, and ventured into the tall grass.
Reaching the ridge, I found myself staring straight at Mount Popocatépetl, shrouded in clouds that covered the sky like a dark blanket. At once, it struck me that I should kneel. The impulse arrived not from conscious thought but from some deeper, automatic response—like breathing, both aware and unaware simultaneously. Then, in the absolute solitude of the mountain’s shadow, came the thought that I should meditate with the sacred AUM chant dedicated to this place where ancient generations had worshipped.
There, kneeling on an ashy path lined by straw grass fields under a volcano revered through millennia, I began to chant, focusing on the vibrations as I always did in that style of meditation. I was oblivious to the mini hail that had begun pouring over me until I opened my eyes, half dazed.
There are moments in life that play out in cinematic fashion. Sometimes we are too busy to notice. Sometimes, we are too cynical to appreciate it. But other times, we find ourselves in just the right place at just the right time and are open enough to receive the experience as a gift that shapes our soul. Opening my eyes, I was so lucky.
The clouds opened—but only around Popocatépetl, revealing the sacred peak in the midst of a perfect storm. As the mountain revealed itself, the hail softened, and I was overcome. Tears poured from my eyes with a force I couldn't control. I felt the extraordinary humility of receiving a gift I had neither the audacity to imagine nor the cynicism to doubt.
I closed my eyes, and my mind raced to distant places. In that moment, I saw the next crisis—not as abstraction but as visceral reality. I saw the suffering that would ensue from climate catastrophe. The water swallowing people, cities disappearing beneath waves and fires. And, I knew it to be truth. It wasn't prophecy in any mystical sense, but rather the mountain showing me what my rational mind already knew but my heart had refused to fully accept.
Mountains have always been places where humans seek perspective. We climb them to see farther, to escape the myopia of daily life, to touch something eternal. But sometimes, if we approach with the right combination of openness and accident, they offer us more than views. They become teachers, mirrors, oracles—not because they possess consciousness, but because in their presence, we access parts of our own consciousness usually buried beneath the noise of modern life.
That day on Popocatépetl, I experienced what indigenous peoples have always known: that certain places on Earth serve as conductors for deeper understanding. Whether we attribute this to energy fields, psychological projection, or simply the power of natural beauty to crack open the human heart, the effect remains the same. We are changed.
I stayed on that ridge until the storm passed, until my tears dried, until the profound became ordinary again. The hike down was quiet, contemplative. By the time I reached my car, the experience had already begun to feel dreamlike, as such experiences do when we try to cage them in memory.
What stayed with me wasn't the drama of the moment but its message. We are living through a time of unprecedented crisis, and most of us sleepwalk through it, distracted by the immediate, the profitable, the comfortable. It takes something dramatic—a mountain opening its clouded heart—to shake us into awareness.
I've returned to cities and boardrooms,. But I carry that moment with me: the reminder that Earth itself is trying to wake us up, if only we could learn to listen. Every rumble, every storm, every moment when the clouds part to reveal something sacred—these are not supernatural events but natural ones, calling us back to our proper relationship with this planet.
The question isn't whether mountains speak. The question is whether we're willing to kneel and listen when they do.
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