The Height of Fearlessness

Book excerpt: Written by Mia Iwama Hastings as told to her by her mother Mimi Iwama, this is a true story unlike any other: the story of the flower-mountain Hanaokayama, a loving mother with a tragic secret, and a nine-year-old girl who learned how to conquer fear. Little Mi-chan is a sensitive, thoughtful child with a delicate constitution and powerful love for nature rivaled only by the strength of her devotion to her mother. At the tender age of nine, Mi-chan dutifully leaves everything behind to follow her mother on a life-changing journey to the top of Hanaokayama, the little flower mountain. There, she eagerly studies the life lessons her mother finds everywhere in the natural world surrounding them: the courageous sacrifice of a fallen cherry blossom, the boundless freedom of the roiling sea, and the impermanence of all things—from the softest rays of morning sunlight to the mightiest trees on the face of the mountain. ​Mi-chan fills the pages of a notebook with the words and images her mother parcels out for her every day on the mountain, each one a precious meditation on the meaning of life, freedom, mindfulness and the power of perspective. Living carefree among trees and wildflowers so colorful they seem to have been painted onto the mountain itself, young Mi-chan cannot know that her mother’s lessons will be the only thing left standing between her and the all-consuming fear of the unknown.