Pole Mountain in early winter snow.
At this elevation, sometimes it is all one can do to breathe.
Inhale. Exhale. There is no more you need to do. What you once gave no thought to, here you learn to consider. What you once took for granted, here you learn to be grateful for.
The air is thinner here. Your lungs crave for more but more is never there. You gasp and are left with wanting for more. There is little more to do. But breathe.
But breathe. And still we thirst for more. Desires challenge breath. Fullness of life versus thinness of air. We work with what we have, balancing our longings with what is around us, somehow always yearning for more.
Breathe, and fill your lungs and pump your legs and run with all your might up the mountainside, you imagine the liberation from the confines of air, dreaming of an effortless release. There is a hunger for the ease of motion as we watch the hawk glide fluidly far above us there in air thinner still as we remain grounded in our labored breath.