Symbolism and Upward Movement: Ladders, Stairs and Mountains

To reach the summit, one must proceed from encampment to encampment. But before setting out for the next refuge, one must prepare those coming after to occupy the place one is leaving. Only after having prepared them can one go on up. That is why, before setting out for a new refuge, we had to go back down in order to pass our Knowledge on to other Seekers."
---René Daumal, Mt. Analogue






I am reading Mt. Analogue. It is a tale about finding and climbing a mountain that the world cannot see and therefore cannot find. The climbers manage to find the mountain by ship, knowing in their hearts that it exists. They find this mysterious mountain and are greeted by the people there and even handed currency for their trip. Of course they wonder what the exchange is for the currency and how everyone knew they were coming. How much is this trip going to cost me? We always ask. The climbers must find the diamond like jewel in the mountains. That is the only real currency. It exists no where else. There are many rules we learn for climbing the mountain. Some reach a certain spot and settle there. Others are driven to go on.

I think about ladders and other ways to go up in the world. One day, I even looked up the kind of ladders there are in the world. There are quite a few.

Apparently there are fixed ladders, like the permanent metal staircases that we use as fire escapes. Some ladders are portable. You take them with you for when you might need them again. Perhaps those are the ones the angels use to move up and down from their place. The angels' ladder is referred to as Jacob's Ladder for them to ascend and descend. It is in Genesis.
A stairway is a type of ladder and is often used as a symbol too. I like stairways myself since you can put your whole foot on each step. It seems so much more stable I can even sit on the stairs sometimes but traditionally stairs are not known as places to rest your rear end. There are the standard stairways and even spiral stairways. I suspect many of us take a spiral path. It is important to remember that once you successfully climb a stairway or ladder that you are firmly on the floor or ground and less likely to fall. This level represents the level of your training you can fall to during your worst of times. That is a tough but true way to see where you really are. The fall down the steps can be a most effective lesson. It is nice to know that you would have to try really hard to fall down another level. In the movie "White Oleander" one of the characters mentions that it is nice to be in the house for children who have no families. "It is the floor that you cannot fall below."

The parts of the ladder are important too. If they are broken or not operating correctly, someone attempting to climb could get hurt. The rungs on a ladder represent levels in a hierarchy, and can symbolize levels of spiritual awareness. A ladder may indicate communication between levels, or ascension to a higher spiritual plane. It can also be the moving to a lower level, of course, but I reflect on how few of us climb down. Most of us tend to fall or dream of accidentally plunging. The game of "Chutes and Ladders" can be considered somewhat related to this idea. You climb up the ladder if you land on a good spot in the path. If you land on a "chute spot" you slide down and away from the goal.

A person may consider that part of the lesson of the labyrinth is that the traveler appears to be the furthest away and yet is always moving closer to the goal. Movement away from the center in a pattern the person can see brings on the realization that moving down or away is still mysteriously moving towards the goal. "One must go down to go up," and "what goes up must come down," if we must count gravity in the equation. Mt. Analogue makes it clear that the mountain must be ascended and also descended.

The journey is of a very personal nature, with no one man having the same experience or way as the other. Everyone in the Mt. Analogue story climbs as a team and thinks of others as they do so. In going up the climbers leave marks to find their way down, or some sign they have been there. The signs are for retracing their own footsteps and also for others. In coming back down, it is important to move the marks from some of the more dangerous passes so as not to mislead others into making the same errors.

Illumination on the ladder is vital or at the very least, quite helpful. You don't want to be climbing so much in the dark but sometimes we do. At least I climb in the dark all the time. Sometimes it is not on purpose. No one knows you are there and they innocently flick the lights off. It takes a few more bumps to get anywhere.
A ladder can be used not only as a passage between levels but is also used to get across openings or around obstacles. Think of a pedestrian footbridge. It takes you up and away from a lower level where a person is most likely to look like a crazed squirrel trying to cross traffic. The bridge brings us to a safe upper passage. We are symbolically rising above the situation. As I mentioned before, stairways and ladders can go downward too. You may need to see what is going on in the basement with the furnace or the pump or what the cat seems to be attracted to down there. One could even cross under the highway to avoid being run over if there is an awareness of a lower passage leading to the goal.

Climbing a ladder can be a symbol of progress, improvement of status, or moving towards a goal. Climbing a ladder to Heaven is a common mythological symbol. It may be a natural symbol, since my niece in second grade just drew Blackie, our beloved and deceased cat, climbing the ladder to heaven. There is a little angel at the top of the ladder smiling and waiting to greet him with open arms. Going up is work. Gravity is ready to easily roll us down.

The ladder is a useful tool for many people, but you have to know how to use it. As simple as it seems, some explanations are required. Did you ever notice that the paint platform of the ladder is labeled so you know not to stand on it? That scares me for more reasons than one. An individual should not reach so far that they flop off the ladder due to lack of balance. This includes standing on the very top of the ladder or the last few rungs. (The circus performers have a free pass on this one, however. There are no rules that suit every situation.) Remember to put your tools up on the platform and not to climb trying to hold onto them. We should not be taking too much stuff up with us. This gives you less opportunity to safely hold onto your ladder and weighs you down. The truth is, we cannot climb a spiritual ladder with lots of "stuff."

Writing and communicating with others is one of the ways we can mark the path mentioned in Mt. Analogue for others. Others are also leaving a safe path for us. Sure we will fall, tumble, and we will also climb and succeed. It is all here somewhere, wherever your "here" may be. Perhaps our path will show for others even when we are gone and in a different place.
In my dreams I am always climbing mountains and hills. Perhaps these are the natural stairs of Mother Earth that represent our climb to reach our other levels. I walk up, I bicycle, and run. Up and up and up! I continually wish to move upward.







"You cannot stay on the summit forever; you have to come down again. So why bother in the first place? Just this: what is above knows what is below, but what is below does not know what is above. One climbs, one sees. One descends, one sees no longer, but one has seen. There is an art to conducting oneself in the lower regions by the memory of what one saw higher up. When one can no longer see, one can still at least know."
---René Daumal, Mt. Analogue









--------------------------------------------------------------------------------




René Daumal (1908-44), a follower of the teachings of G.I. Gurdjieff, also studied Sanskrit, philosophy, science, mathematics, and medicine. I am told that Daumal never completed Mt. Analogue. He passed on to the next world leaving the book in the middle of the fifth chapter. The book ends in the middle of a sentence. Perhaps he is finishing the great piece in another place having found his jewel in this world already. He left us much of the trail to follow. Daumal was a mountain climber, however, his book is entertaining for anyone to read and is full of rich symbolism that will appeal to any form of climber. Mt. Analogue is the mountain that provides the path to what appears beyond our reach. This is leading us to what we believe as metaphor right up into a way of viewing reality differently.