Rhiannon’s Reviews > In the Shadow of the Mountain: A Memoir of Courage > Status Update

On her ayahuasca trip, Sylvia reunites with her child self. She sees her as she is, not how she had been harshly judging her to be, a scared, broken and lonely little girl. A victim of sexual abuse. She holds the child tight and is consumed with the rage of injustice. The child takes her hand, brings her to the mountains so that they may freely roam the valleys, highs and lows of life and marvel with childlike wonder

Jesus christ.

Many survivors experience disassociation. Sensory interaction can help gain reconnection to and ownership of their bodies. Trauma lives in the body and we must work it out through the body. Through sexual abuse, boundaries dissolve. Physical, emotional and energetic boundaries. As you grow, you carry all the terrible things they inflicted on you.

Working in the fight against human trafficking, prostitution and violence against women generally, and harbouring my own deep love for the mountains and mountaineering myself, this book is a great fit for me .

Its written in a deeply, cuttingly honest way that is at the same time shocking and saddening but also profoundly beautiful and inspiring.

I'm so excited to learn more about these courageous, shakti girls.

The girls were living in a shelter for victims of sexual violence/ trafficking. I was an outsider and they were wary for good reason. But once I told them my idea to hike mount everest base camp with other survivors, they came alive. All the soft mannerisms went out the window and I saw a hunger in each of them. A hunger to defy a system that had told them what they could be their whole lives. A hunger I recognised

For that leap, for finally trusting myself I thought I'd be rewarded by some flash of divinity, towering peaks in all directions. Instead, I was shuttled back to the chaos of my youth. Now, on my 3rd trip to the himalayas I laugh at how arrogant I was then. I didnt know how much pain there is in healing. To heal I'd have to wade through chaos not just show up at the foot of the mountain ready for some benediction

"Everest has many names, but they all mean mother: Sagarmāthā mother of the sky, Chomolungma mother of the world. I don't fear her. I have reverence for her power, her sheer hulking breath. Instead of terror i felt protected by her size. There's something nurturing and steady about eons of rock, about Everest's immovable brutality and beauty. I have come to envision her as the strong spiritual guide I never had."