Take a few moments to slow down and be drawn into this experience of ecological encounter, awakening, and hope. Mary Robson shares her experience of Two Mountains while on retreat in Manresa Spain.

The Two Mountains – An EcoSpirituality Awakening

There are moments when the beauty of creation takes your breath away…
and moments when it breaks your heart.

I remember arriving in Manresa, in northern Spain a couple of years ago for an EcoSpiriutality symposium, and being once again captivated by the magnificence of Montserrat.

Its jagged peaks rose like an ancient prayer—shifting in colour and light from sunrise to sunset. There was a quiet sense that the land itself was alive… speaking, if only we would listen.

Each day unfolded slowly, attentively. Walking through the countryside around Manresa—along river paths and through fields of olive trees and wild herbs—there was a deep invitation: to see, to notice, to receive. Creation felt abundant, generous… enough.

And yet, not far from this beauty, we came upon something confronting.

A landfill site on the outskirts of Manresa—vast, overwhelming.
What first appeared like an ordinary hill revealed itself, at the summit, to be something else entirely: a mountain of waste.

The smell was strong. The scale, unsettling.
Machines moved constantly, compressing layer upon layer, while trucks continued to arrive—bringing more.

It was impossible not to feel the contrast.
On one horizon, the splendour of Montserrat.
On the other, the visible weight of human consumption.

Two mountains.

Standing there, a quiet prayer surfaced:
forgive us…

And then, a deeper question followed:
Do we really not know what we are doing?

Because something in me recognised this truth—
that I, too, am part of this story.
In small, ordinary choices.
In what I use… and what I discard.

That image stayed. It lingered.
Two mountains.

One of beauty, one of waste.

And perhaps that is where hope begins.
Not in grand solutions alone, but in awareness…
in the willingness to see clearly,
to take responsibility,
to choose differently.

To handle what we are given with greater care.
To honour creation, not only in wonder…
but in action.

Because the state of our world is not separate from us.
It is shaped, day by day,
by the way we live within it.

And so the invitation remains—
to notice,
to reflect,
and to respond with love.