The Universe's tool of choice is Violence.

Global Fast Fit hiking club had me at the top of Mt Longonot.

Mount Longonot is a dormant volcano located in the Great Rift Valley near Lake Naivasha, rising to an elevation of 2,776 meters. It is a popular hiking destination featuring a 3.1 km steep ascent to the rim and a 7.2 km loop around the 1.8 km wide crater, offering scenic views, with a total hike time of 3-6 hours. Admittedly, it is not too long but it is very steep. As we went round the rim of the volcano, I was treated to stunning panaromic views including 3 different rainclouds, in three different areas, pouring rain and thunder. It felt God like. My mind started to drift. 

As you hike the trail, If you have a good pair of lungs and native Kalenjin legs carrying you, like I do, then you will use 50% of your energy going up the mountain and the other 50% noticing the memory of a massive volcanic eruption a long time ago. The long fissures on the ground, the lava flow remains, the deep crater left, the abundant ecosystem that has laid claim to these remains and attempt to hide the extent of damage done on this mountain by a violent series of eruptions. The eruption solidified its name, Oloonong'ot, as it created dramatic, rugged spurs and steep ridges that still define the mountain today- Mountain of Many Spurs. 

I started to think about how beginnings are rarely soft. Even life itself has painful, forceful beginnings. The universe does not favor gentle beginnings. Its tool of choice is the violent burst: rupture, pressure, tearing, collapse, eruption, burning, breaking. Beginnings are often misremembered as hopeful, peaceful, glowing things but when you actually look closely, many beginnings are brutal. 

A new life does not drift quietly into the world. Child birth comes through contractions, pressure, tearing, blood, pain, and immense force. For the chick to begin its life in the world, it must strike, crack, and break the very structure that once protected it. A seed does not grow by staying whole, the casing splits, the contained form breaks, and only then can roots and shoots emerge. New land can be born through volcanic explosion. The eruption looks destructive, yet it is also creative, laying down the material for future ground. Floods are feared for their force, but they also carry and spread rich sediment that later supports healthy regrowth. Forest fire consumes, but it also clears dead matter, opens cones, returns nutrients to the soil, and creates conditions for regrowth. Even something as fluid as water begins new landscapes through relentless force. Over time a river cuts, wears down, and reshapes stone itself. A butterfly emerging from a chrysalis is not neat. The butterfly must struggle out. The emergence is effortful because the struggle itself helps form what is needed for flight. Ease would actually interrupt development. Muscle develops when strain creates tiny tears in tissue, which the body then repairs into stronger form. An island may begin in hidden violence, with magma forcing its way upward beneath the sea. A beautiful island paradise begins in fire, pressure, and upheaval.

Inner life follows the same pattern. A person often does not awaken gently. Awareness begins when a lie fails, when denial can no longer hold, when an inner structure cracks. A new mind begins in the ruins of a false one. Often, emotional healing begins with emotions like anger, shame, confusion, pain or conflict.

I think the energy feels violent because beginnings are rarely clean. They are crowded with tension, uncertainty, and force. They push matter, body, time, or self out of one form and into another it is not just the start of something but rather, a rearrangement of something already in existance. This kind of change must have friction. It must cost something. One state has to break so that another can exist. 

Maybe we suffer partly because we keep expecting beginnings to feel gentle when the pattern all around us suggests they are often scorching. 

It was a calming thought. The hike may have been tough but I felt warm. I realized that the we often dread the intensity, the instability and the disruptive nature of life in general and use a lot of time and effort to keep things the way they are. But the universe is much bigger and stronger and will have its way every time. The universe concentrates force to break one form so that another can begin. So I do not need to mistake intensity for failure but, to stay steady enough to be remade as need be.