Mountains long have been a place for spiritual connection. Moses, Mohammad, and other spiritual leaders spent time on or in mountains communing with the divine.  Heidegger, in his discourse “Religion as a Human Enterprise” labels the divine the “more than self”– thus leaving this important human connection open to interpretations beyond labels like “God.”

Reaching the top of the mountain is rarely easy – nor is communicating with, understanding, and applying guidance from the “more than self”, however you choose to define it.  Since many people have grown up with some kind of spiritual system, it is important to examine our connection with, or lack of connection with, the “more than self.”

Here are a few questions to guide you:

Are there any physical mountains that symbolize your connection to the more than self?  Have you ever experienced the transcendental on a mountain?  Where are your mountains? How do you get there? Who do you find there? What do you find there? Why do you climb?

Here is a collection of images about mountains, the more than self, and personal cosmologies.  My deepest thanks to the artists for sharing their creations.