Into the Mountains
I use a lot of mountain imagery in my business marketing and branding. I grew up in Fort Collins Colorado, a small town in northern Colorado, east of Horsetooth mountain, and close to the Big Thompson and the Poudre canyons. I am truly a mountain girl at heart.
My grandparents lived in the tiny little mountain town of Beulah Colorado, a 45-minute drive west of Pueblo Colorado. I would spend 2 weeks every summer in those mountains growing up. They lived in a modular home on a hill that overlooked their land with a campsite and many garages that my grandfather kept his antique model T and model A cars that he would tinker on in his retirement years. We even had a little model T car that had a lawnmower engine that we would drive around the property. The “wee T” was like a little go cart for us. I remember my grandfather showing up to the dinner table with his jeans and shirt covered in oil and rocky mountain dirt. The thought of that smell of motor oil makes me smile because it reminds me of a very hardworking man of very few words that loved his cars and his family. There was also a creek that ran through their property with a little bridge that led to a clearing with a salt lick for the deer.
I grew up in the 80’s and 90’s in a time before cell phones, home internet, and tv on demand. I would spend those two weeks in the mountains with my sister and cousin playing. We would explore and hike or walk barefoot following the creek with that crisp cool water while our socks and shoes sat on the bridge waiting for us to come back. We played make-believe and ran around in that warm summer sun.
My grandparents had a pack of dogs that would follow us kids around to make sure we stayed in line. We would only go inside to eat a quick lunch and then to eat dinner, and take our baths at night and then sleep like a rock only to get up early the next morning and do it all over again. Sleeping up in those mountains always came easy.
“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s pace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.”
My grandmother had hummingbird feeders that lined the front porch and at dusk every night it was a tiny hummingbird feeding frenzy, in my little mind it seemed like hundreds of the tiny little birds. I remember that my grandmother would hum songs as she did her daily chores. To this day I have had quite a few instances where a little hummingbird has buzzed directly in my face and just stays there, and I know that is my grandmother stopping by to say hello from heaven.
That little refuge of my grandparent’s mountain property shaped me as a person with love and respect for nature and my place in it. I remember my grandmother would see a spider in her house and tell me that we needed to leave him alone and we needed to live with them because it was their world and their space too. Those mountains taught me that there is a bigger picture out there and I am part of that big picture.
Mountains are thought cause divine inspiration where people go to transcend and find themselves. Those mountains are an ultimate symbol of stability and strength with the amazing power of nature that gives you a spiritual closeness to God. Standing on the top of that mountain makes you feel both humble and very small, yet inspired and respectful for how big our world is and where you feel most alive. We are the keepers of our world, and we need to love it and take care of it.
“Mountains teach that not everything in this world can be rationally explained”
