The Woman At The Mountain Top

Deeply hidden in the mountains, away from the rest of the world there once was a place unlike any other. On the surface, it looked like any old landscape. A mountain made green by the foliage of trees, a river running through a paradise-like valley, and a village at the foot of it it all. This was the kind of place that you might see on the hastily scribbled postcards that your backpacking friends send you to remind you that the world is bigger than you could ever imagine. 

A place like so many if it weren’t for one unique inhabitant who lived all by herself at the top of the mountain. She was believed to be the spirit of the mountain itself. Her life consisted of an endless meditation, a deep one that would allow all the elements of nature to speak to her. The wind that stroked the grass, the flowers that whispered tales of what happened underneath the earth, and the insects buzzing about the worlds they got to know better than any human ever could. All these things together would shape inside her mind into a pearl of deep wisdom that she would then sent down the stream so the villagers in the valley along with their crops and trees could hear it. 

The people waited all day, every day for her words to come down the stream, and whatever would arrive at their village, it always filled their hearts with peace and serenity. The nature around them flourished under the beautiful, kind words that the wise woman on the top of the mountain would send down to them. Those pearls of wisdom were sources of life for the hearts, minds, and souls of the people, as well as the trees, plants, grass, and flowers. 

This didn’t sit well with some of the inhabitants of the village, though. There are always the people who want more than peace of mind and harmony, and so it was with the mayor of the village and his friends. Where most people saw beautiful trees, he saw the potential to build majestic palaces and statues in his honor, for him there were no beautiful flowers but just petals he could decorate his palaces with, and the animals? Well, they were there to be put in cages to celebrate his glory. His big frustration was that he knew he would never get any of the people to build all those things for him.

“Why would they bother to build things for me when they can just walk around with peace in their hearts all the time,’’ he complained to one of his friends.

“Well, it seems they are happy to listen to whatever the wise woman from up the mountain tells them. Perhaps you should convince her to tell them the things you want them to do.’’

Now, we have all seen enough movies to know that convincing doesn’t mean having a friendly conversation over a few beers when it comes to power-hungry leaders. The old, wise woman refused many times but after they had burned down her house, destroyed her flower beds, and threatened to kill her cats and goats, the wise old woman had no choice but to send their messages down the stream. 

And so it happened that from that day on messages like:

“Build a castle. Build a statue. Worship your mayor, he knows what’s best for you,’’ were found on the bank of the river.

And the villagers? Well, they did what they were told. They had no reason to distrust the voice coming down the stream since it had always brought them nothing but peace of mind and overall good feelings. 

After a while, something terrible started to happen though. The stream turned brown. Brown of the ugliest shade imaginable. You know, the type you get when you eat the wrong kind of food… Yes, that kind of brown! 

The brown water no longer brought the words that whispered gently to the roots of the trees and flowers, it no longer encouraged the grass to grow in their brightest green, nor did it cover the sunlight in a layer that felt soothing on the villagers their skins. In fact, it killed all those things entirely until they all became withered, leafless, and colorless. And so it happened that one day there was nothing left alive for the wind to dance through. 

The people who were now without comforting words or beautiful nature were quick to rebel against the mayor and his friends. As one mob they showed up at the huge castle they had build for him. They burned the statues that they had carved for him from the beautiful trees that once grew in abundance and they released all the animals that got wild in their cages, hoping that they would run inside and devour the mayor and his friends. And the mayor? Well, as many villains do he pretended to be innocent.

“It was not my fault, it was the woman from the mountain top who has sent down the bad news. She was the one who told you to do what was done. She must be upset with you, she probably thinks that you don’t deserve the beauty of nature or the serenity of soul.’’

The thing with people who always got their beauty, gentle thoughts, and kind words from higher up, is that they have never learned to make their own thought pearls. That’s why they instantly believed whatever they were told by the mayor, and so they all climbed up the mountain. They begged the old woman to send them kind words again that could bring peace to their hearts, they begged her for the whispers that would make the trees grow and the river flow, but nothing happened. 

The problem was that the old woman simply couldn’t. During her meditation, she had always relied on the whispers of the insects, the breeze of the wind through the leaves, and the scent of the flowers to bring her, her thoughts. Now that they had died along with everything else there was nothing left to give her what she had been giving to all the others.

One day, as she was trying again to catch a thought that would enlighten her, she shook her head. She had been trying so long, so fruitlessly that deep down she knew that her head, nor her heart or soul would offer the answer.  With a deep sigh, she looked down at her hands and knew that the only option left would have to come from them. She stood up and went to work.  She planted many seeds to grow new trees and flowers, she walked great distances to get water for them and she worked the dry dirt every day to make it fertile again. 

The people who were still on their knees, begging her to bring back what they had lost, saw this and looked at it with amazement in their eyes. Instead of listening to their pleads, she wordlessly walked around to do all the necessary work. Reluctantly they started to do the same. After all, perhaps she was showing them what they could do to make her less angry at them. Tree by tree, flower by flower, and field by field they made the things grow back that they had lost. It took them a while, that’s true, but eventually, the inner peace returned into their hearts.