Mostly my brother Stephen, or Steve as I affectionately know him, and I meet every few weeks for coffee or breakfast.
Recently he suggested we do something different and I loved it.
Steve was preparing for a week-long trip to Spain to walk a 200km section of the Camino, something he has been doing every year for the last few years. He wanted a few more hilly miles in his legs and suggested a hike in the Mourne Mountains.
I was all in.
I love the Mournes and I knew the time with Steve would be great.
The Sunday after he suggested it, we were both free.
The route he had picked was the Binnian Loop, a walk neither of us had done together before, in fact I had never done it.
The morning was beautiful.
Clear blue skies. Bright sunshine. Just a couple of degrees above freezing when I picked him up at 6.30am.
We chatted the whole drive down.
As we got deeper into the Mournes the roads narrowed, the mountains rose around us and the conversation naturally quietened.
The landscape seemed to demand our attention.
Not long after arriving we shouldered our backpacks and headed off.
The route was mostly quiet.
Most of the time it was just the two of us.
Occasionally someone passed us running up the mountain, which still seems complete madness to me. At one point we even met a group coming down barefoot, training for some extreme event.
Mostly though, it was just Steve, me and the mountains.
Sometimes we talked.
Sometimes we didn’t.
The scenery was breathtaking.
Every twist in the path seemed to offer another view that stopped me in my tracks. Mountains stretching into the distance. Valleys falling away towards the shimmering sea. Light dancing across the landscape.
It felt as if every pause filled something in me.
As the climb steepened the conversation disappeared altogether.
I was focused on my next step and my breathing, which by now was working pretty hard.
Ninety minutes from when we set out, we reached the summit.
The wind was fierce. The temperature biting.
The view was magnificent.
We sat on a rock, shared a snack and looked out across mountains we had climbed before, tracing old routes and old memories.
If it hadn’t been so cold, I could have stayed there for hours.
Not because of the view.
Because of the feeling.
The feeling of being connected.
Connected to nature.
Connected to Steve.
Connected to something I find difficult to put into words.
I’ve included a few photos because they might help convey what I’m trying to describe.
After leaving the summit we looped around the mountain and eventually made our way back to the car.
By 11.30am we were finished.
A full day’s adventure packed into a few hours.
But for me, the day wasn’t really about hiking.
It was about connection.
No phones.
No emails.
No work.
Just time to walk, talk, listen and be with someone who matters deeply to me.
Time to slow down enough to notice.
Time to feel connected to the mystery of life and nature that just keeps unfolding.
As I write this, I’m in Portugal.
We’re staying in a small town on the Atlantic coast near Lisbon.
I’m working while I’m here, but with fewer meetings than usual I have found myself with more space.
More walks.
More sunsets.
More opportunities to sit and listen to the endless rhythm of the ocean.
Wave after wave emerging from the sea only to return to it moments later.
And something interesting has happened.
I find myself feeling more connected.
More connected to nature.
More connected to life.
More connected to the mystery of it all.
I feel my smallness.
I feel my insignificance.
And strangely, at the same time, I feel my greatness.
Not personal greatness.
The greatness that comes from being part of something far bigger than me.
Whatever intelligence creates waves, shapes mountains and breathes life into the world is the same intelligence that allows me to be here at all.
Without my connection to it … there is no me.
None.
And because that same source runs through every one of us, I keep coming back to the same conclusion.
We are capable of far more than we imagine.
Far more love.
Far more connection.
Far more creation.
Far more possibility.
When I feel connected in that way, the idea that anything is possible doesn’t feel like wishful thinking.
It feels like the most natural thing in the world.
Much love
Peter