As eclipse season begins, I’m saying goodbye to a piece of my childhood
I found myself standing at the top of Aspen Street, watching the guys from Leitner-Poma, in blaze orange safety shirts, unload trucks, tools, and massive spools to remove the cable from 1A, Aspen Mountain’s oldest chairlift. The sheer magnitude of the chairlift machinery fascinates me to no end. The coolest part is that nearly everything on our ski lifts — except the chairs themselves — is built a mere two hours away in Grand Junction.
I wandered over and plopped down beneath the now chair-less cable. As a kid, 1A was my personal after-school swing set. I wasn’t tall enough to jump up into the chairs, so I’d climb onto the red concrete platform to hoist my skinny middle-school body up for a swing after the lifts closed and everyone had gone home. It felt like my own private playground.
Sitting there, I was surprised by an unexpected wave of melancholy.
I grew up in a condo at the base of 1A. It also served as my sledding hill, complete with that terrifying pitch at the bottom that had me gripping the brakes on my red American Flyer, praying I could stop before hitting a tree or a building. It was thrilling for this flatlander Okie-turned-mountain girl.
But 1A was much more than a swing set and sledding hill for me — it was my salvation. I’d arrived in Aspen raw from abuse at the hands of my father. My young nervous system was blown out. I felt as though my skin had been flayed open, like a gutted trout, turned inside out.
The 1A area of the ski mountain became my refuge. I’d wander up the ski runs, explore the Aspen grove that still partially stands today, and spend hours all by myself, safe on the mountain.
I scrambled as far as the bottom of a ski run called Corkscrew and felt like I’d summited Everest, gasping for oxygen and all. I poked around abandoned mining remnants, jumped on rotting plywood bridges and played in little runoff streams. I often investigated what I thought was a “hobo” camp, but in hindsight was probably just hippies sleeping out, saving on rent. One standout day I scored a hundred-dollar bill under the lift. For a kid in the ’70s, whose sole income consisted of selling twenty-cent Aspen Times newspapers, I thought I’d struck silver.
More importantly, I learned to feel safe in my body again during those explorations in nature. The mountain gave this eight-year-old girl something she desperately needed: peace.
Sitting beneath the dismantling lift, the memories came flooding back — the pain that drove me there and the healing I found once I arrived. I’m genuinely sad to see 1A go. It always felt like Aspen’s little mom-and-pop ski area, tucked away from the hustle and bustle of town. I’ll miss those sweet, spring corn turns down the skier’s left side of Fifth Avenue, one of my favorite ski runs, and the easy chats with the lift operators before another slow ride back up, for one more lap.
But life keeps rolling on and changing. At least I had the chance to sit quietly beneath that empty cable, to say thank you and goodbye.
Wednesday brings the Leo new moon, which is also a solar eclipse, opening the two-week eclipse season that continues through the full moon and lunar eclipse later this month. Astrologers have long associated eclipses with change — endings, beginnings, and alchemical metamorphosis. Eclipses inspire us to pause, reflect, and consider what we need to let go of so we can create more of what we want.
As I sat beneath 1A, I couldn’t help but think about the eclipse’s invitation. Sometimes transformation doesn’t arrive with bells and whistles. Sometimes it looks like sitting quietly beneath an old chairlift, honoring both the joy and the pain it witnessed, releasing one more layer.
Where in your life can you allow both the hurting and the healing to coexist? How can feeling both sides of that same coin free you just a little bit more?
I’m profoundly grateful I landed in Aspen after everything I’d been through. The mountain gave me something no person could at the time: a place where I finally felt safe. That lesson has informed my entire life. Whenever I need to come home to myself, I still head for 1A — the place that first taught me what peace felt like.
Sheridan 💫
Moon Sisters Circle, Astrologer, and Astrology In Real Life Coaching