I have a sweet photo from when I was 10 months old, standing alone with a pretty dress on the mountain side, near a beautiful lake 1300 m. altitude, smiling irreverently to the joy of my first step.
My dad, who made the photo, always tells me I was heading to him, my mum was few meter away, so I was left alone on the blanket asserting with baby legs my will to walk my life.

Little I knew back then how those same very legs where smashed in pieces something like 22 years later.
Little I knew back then that I could feel the same feeling of my "first step" when, after I left the wheelchair and the crutches, I was able to walk without aid, alone again.

I did know then that on that very day something of a greater power enter into me at Lake of Saint Mary (lago di Santa Maria di Tret, Valle di Non, Italy).
I call it: The mountain spirit.

Yes because despite my traveling around the world, living in many cities and places I am and always will be a mountain girl.

My spirit is of a warrior for finding.....peace, love and truth.
My spirit is standing strong rooted firmly on the earth like a pine tree reaching out to the sky and always green, never looses faith that the sky is up and will not fall upon me.
Although I stumbled on many rocks and lost trust more then once, the mountain have been always the best friend, a solid rock, God within me, a shoulder to lean in those desperate and lonely moments we all have to go through.

My spirit is silent like those high beautiful Dolomites or if you wish the Himalaya, high, majestic, proud and humble at the same time.
Silence only broken by the wind blowing, but that in my perception is part of silence.

My spirit is the spirit of the mountain.

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