Embark on a soul-stirring journey of love and transformation—where every step is a leap towards the endless embrace of self-compassion and universal love.
“Receiving a heart-calling to travel the holy path around one of the world’s most sacred mountains, Tracey Alysson takes us on this thirty-four-mile path not by walking but by doing endless prostrations. Traveling a path filled with rocks and boulders, a path often underwater or covered with ice and snow at higher elevations, requires more than physical stamina. Here, we are brought to the essence of a spiritual journey as she and we learn that the physical body alone cannot accomplish this task; yet, the physical demands strip away all illusions and all defenses to lay bare the emotional, psychic, and spiritual bones of her being. It is a heart-rending and heartfelt pilgrimage.”
—Barbara Meyers, MSW, author of Common Ground, Uncommon Gifts: Growing Peace and Harmony Through Stories, Reflections, and Practices in the Natural World and Fables for Wisdom Seekers Young and Old
In 2006, I felt a profound calling to undertake a pilgrimage to Mount Kailash, a revered mountain in the remote wilderness of Western Tibet. I embarked on this journey with little understanding of what it entailed. I was inexperienced with high altitudes, which at Mount Kailash range from 14,500 to 18,500 feet above sea level, where the air is thin, energy scarce, and vegetation sparse due to the elevation above the tree line. I was unfamiliar with both the language and the culture of the region. All I knew was that I was drawn to Kailash, compelled to place my body upon the Tibetan land and open my heart to be embraced.
My calling was to perform the Khora with Prostrations—a devotional act of circumambulating Mount Kailash by prostrating fully on the ground with each step. This sacred journey involves moving along the 34-mile Khora path by alternating between standing and lying flat in full-body prostrations, covering the distance one body length at a time. As I progressed, I recited a mantra with each movement. Unbeknownst to me at the time, I later learned that I was the first Westerner known to have completed this intense spiritual practice. While many pilgrims walk or ride on horseback, completing the Khora in about three days, some Japanese and Tibetan devotees also undertake the full prostration method, though no other Westerners are known to have done so. It took me 28 days to complete the circuit around this sacred mountain. The belief is that performing the Khora erases a year of one’s karma. For me, it has been a transformative experience that continues to reshape my life.
Excerpts from Dying & Living
Tossing and turning for an hour, sorting things through in my thoughts. I am so afraid. I am so afraid to set my foot on Mount Kailash. Why did they invite me? I don’t want this much vitality, this much ability, this much blessing. All my life, I just wanted to be left alone and to be ordinary, and now, I come and accept an invitation like this. It’s not going around the mountain. I think I can do that if I choose to. It’s that if I go around the mountain, it never stops. There is no escape from all this love. There’s no escape, and that’s what terrifies me. MotherFather Kailash, receive me, teach me in the way I need to be taught. Despite my ignorance, despite my blindness, I have come to you. I have come. I have come to receive your blessing and your teaching and your empowerment. I have come to love you. I have come to love me. (page 67)
In July, August, and September of 2006, I made a journey that I knew would change my life. When I agreed to go to Tibet and do prostrations around Mount Kailash, there were some things that I did not know. I did not know that this journey would change every piece of my life, shattering the old and leaving me naked, lost, and grateful as the realization dawned that I could not return to my old life. While I knew that the journey around Kailash would change me, I did not consciously understand that the change does not stop. Once this kind of door is opened, it is an invitation that evolves, walking slowly in front of me, inviting me to keep coming forward. p. 1
Mount Kailash is spectacular. Although I cannot see it, I have no doubt that it is streaming out constant blessings on us all. But my heart and your heart is streaming out constant blessings on us all, too. Have you ever noticed how we humans are around babies? The toughest tough guy shines forth light and joy when meeting a baby. His or her true heart suddenly emanates, shines out and blesses us all. Babies are Mount Kailash, too. It’s not Mount Kailash, it’s not the form. It’s not the baby, either. Those things exist to remind us of our hearts, that our hearts are always there, are always working, do not need developing or training or more of anything. Our hearts constantly love. We suppress that, hide that, and keep it secret, shining it only with a special friend or in a special moment. Yet it’s there 24/7. pp. 174-175
The love inside me and outside me is the same love. If I close that door and make you different from me, then I have forgotten the Khora with prostrations. I have let the world separate into East and West again, and I have told you that I can function without your love, and I can’t. I can repeat historical patterns in a solipsistic world of my own past projections. But I can’t live in the present moment without living in your/my love. p. 180
Slideshow from Tibet
