Mountains and I

I love watching mountains. And I watch them because I find myself in them, as I do, in the rivers and the seas. I find myself in tree and bird song, in brilliant colour and frog. I find myself in sky and soil, seed and rock. It is not strange to me, what I feel, how I feel. It is how it has been all my life. I don't know how or why, it seems almost ridiculous for me to question this sense of being or for that matter try to explain it.

And when I am with the mountains, we vibrate in song. It is how we are, the mountains and I synced in our rhythms. The mists pass us by and the sudden flight of wings brush our souls. We do not have to speak to each other, the mountains and I, but we are listening and understanding things we have never spoken, thoughts we have never felt, futures we do not  know of. And on one side I know the mountains are being mined, and perhaps for the same reasons, I feel in my body and mind, the corrosive effect of our cultures and our times. We cry, the mountains and I, ripped apart and yet we stand with grace as the mists move and the birds fly. There is a lonely tree clutching the disintegrating rocky edge with her roots and I hear her in my mind.  And her roots, it seems, clutch at the fragments of my sanity as well. 

The mountains, I find, are light and never colossal. To me they are delicate, moving, breathing and subtle. They are shy and rare, precious beings. And when we are insensitive, they are hidden to us. They change with light, mysterious and secretive and yet their hearts are open and when we sing together, I can hear their softness, their tenderness. When I am with them, the rivers hold new meanings for me, for they too sing with us, sharing their secrets. Our vulnerability holds us together. 

I have a notebook and pencil in hand, sometimes water colours. I want to sketch these magnificent beings, I think to myself. But it is overwhelming for me. It seems personal, the spirit and energy , our song and the love that we share together, the mountains and I. It is prayer to me, but it is also fun. It is also my joy, undiluted, pure and it is my sanity.

But I know that what I write on this blog, on this computer, comes from those mines of my mountains. I know that the song I hear, the steady hum that is interwoven with my heart is too deep to break, but I know when my heart feels the strain, that the mountains are in danger. I know when I hear the roots clutching at my bones, that the mountains are coming down. Oh the earth will shift, new mountains will be churned out of the sea perhaps and the steady hum of my heart will always be filled with mountains. But perhaps then, I may be mist or rock or sea. 

The mountains and I, we belong together.