The Mountain and the Traveler (w/ addendum - 1/1/2018)

Sandia Crest in a morning mist.
(Click on photos - above and below the jump -  for enlarged views.)

"Every morning, thousands of Pueblo people in New Mexico offer their prayers to Sandia Mountain, which towers over the Rio Grande valley. "It has been very difficult to get the outside world to understand what Sandia Mountain means to our people," says Sandia Pueblo governor Stuwart Paisano. "It is central to our identity, religion, oral history, and songs. It is a source of life and healing to us, and we have a sacred duty to protect and preserve it."

- From an article found here.

"This is the secret. And this is the power symbolized by the mountain, which grasps and gives shape to the Creative. The Chinese consider the mountain a cosmic phenomenon; not merely an accumulation of earth and stones, but a center - we might say a center of magnetic and electric forces.. Something happens in and around a mountain. Life congregates, vapors rising from the earth condense there; from the hood of the fog that covers the mountain rains dash down to earth to make earth fruitful... A living organism covers the mountain like a thin green skin... All life rejoices in the mountains solidity, and the great power of the mountain nourishes all life."

- Excerpt from Richard Wilhelm's Lectures on the I Ching.

"Throughout history, mountains have symbolized constancy, eternity, firmness and stillness. Mountain tops, notes J.C. Cooper, "are associated with sun, rain and thunder gods and, in early traditions of the feminine godhead, the mountain was the earth and female, with the sky, clouds, thunder and lightning as the fecundating male." On the spiritual level, observes Cooper, "mountain tops represent the state of full consciousness." Cooper notes that pilgrimmages up sacred mountains symbolize aspiration and renunciation of worldly desires."

"Mircea Eliade in Images And Symbols, emphasizes the mountain as the center of the earth. He says that the "peak of the cosmic mountain is not only the highest point on earth, it is also the earth's navel, the point where creation had its beginning." This mystic sense of the peak, writes Cirlot, "also comes from the fact that it is the point of contact between heaven and earth, or the center through which the world-axis passes."

- Two quotes found on this page.

***

Most days I wake up just before dawn in a kind of amnesia. Where am I? Then slowly it comes to me that I am not in my bedroom... nor any room at all.

I look up at the fading stars. How did I get here? But, then, I reach up my hand and touch the windshield of my car... and remember. This is my home. I'm a nomad now... a traveler.

I sit up, gathering myself around me... tissues of lives both past and present as palpable as the blanket and garments which are wound around my altered frame. I take one look at my face in the rear-view mirror - haggard but presentable -  and then tilt it back in place. A rose-colored dawn is beginning to suffuse the rear window. I turn the key in the ignition... the engine hums. Time to move on.

Most mornings it's just me and the ravens. They've become accustomed to me now and they know, despite the larger size of my black vehicle, I am really somewhat like them. Road-runners, hares, coyotes... I imagine they all realize that the human they've encountered is likewise wild, solitary... and merely bent on surviving. They have nothing to fear. Not even the small rectangular weapon this human carries is deadly. Well, it doesn't shoot bullets at any rate.

But, it goes without saying, that the minute I lift my camera, the birds and animals scatter. Anything in the hands of a human is suspect...

Most mornings are also shared with flocks of hot-air balloons. The one above - the "Love Balloon" - was caught in the process of inflating. Which is not to say that, in the eye of the camera, it has become any less wonderful.

The Sandia Mountains are at all times visible from Albuquerque and its surrounding areas. All roads snake their way to the base of the Sandias and it seems as if all buildings were built facing the Sandias as if they were Mecca. Which, in a sense, they are. Most especially Sandia Crest, the icon of the area, which is often incorporated into advertising logos.

This could be any neighborhood in and around Albuquerque. Note the bizarre
cloud formation over Sandia Crest in the background.

Likewise, the area spawns numerous churches of a neo-Christian flavor. That is, the flocks which have gathered here were most likely nominally aware of, and attracted by, the sacredness of the mountain and figured it was as good a place as any to set up camp. But, ultimately, religious dogma (of any variety) has no place here. It falls on alien ears.

The early morning sun rising directly above Sandia Crest.

Different gods... other spirits reign here... more ancient by far.  Apart from the Pueblo people - who continue to strive to protect the Sandias from the contemporary, capitalistic hordes (for whom nothing is truly sacred) - I wonder if anyone has noticed the Sandia's more supernatural presence?

The haunted Sandias.

When all is said and done, I, too, have been called to the mountain. It is possibly the only reason I have come to New Mexico. But, I am not here to petition the gods. I am not here to scale its summit. I am here to understand. And no one can grow to understand a mountain quite like a traveler. No one but the rootless can appreciate the regenerative power of place... specifically this place... the essence of which cannot be possessed by human laws, money, or statistical data.

I recently read a novel - reading beneath street lights at night has, after all, become my main form of nocturnal entertainment - in which a mountain in southern France, formerly made famous by the series of paintings by Cezanne (example inset right), was one of its leading characters. Towards the end of the novel, the matriarch gathered her confused and malcontented brood around her to join her as she sat in front of Mount Saint Victoire. She advised them to watch the mountain as it changed color throughout the day and, in time, they might find answers to their dilemmas. Which (of course) they did.

But, my life is not quite as fictional... and I'm not sure that it is "answers" I expect to find. I only know that it is here, at the base of Sandia Crest, I can feel at peace. Sometimes I sleep here. The first time I pulled up in my car for the night, I didn't realize I was directly in front of the mountain till dawn. And then, it rose before me like a revelation.

There was a sacred mountain in Celtic Druid lore referred to as the "Lost Mountain" because it was said that, from time to time, the sky fell down and obscured the mountain from view. Sandia Crest is just such a mountain. It is almost invisible at night, and when not shrouded in a morning mist it is sometimes the place where heaven and earth literally meet.

The mountain in the clouds... the clouds in the mountain.

The mountain creates; its canvas is the sky, its medium is the clouds. While I, myself, am unable to really get into creative mode these days, and only have access to a computer at the local library - support you local libraries (!) - nothing prevents me from recording the amazing artistic output of Sandia Crest. It has become my mission.

This shot insists upon looking fake no matter what I do...
but it is real and so is the color.

Above is a lenticular cloud. Below is a more amazing example. In this photo the mountain itself is brooding and obscured in darkness.  Perhaps it's dreaming... because, emerging from the murky mass above it are these wonderful white, fluffy clouds. Is it just me or is the largest cloud in the shape of a bearded man's head?

And then there are the Sandia rainbows... and don't think for a moment that the Sandias haven't had a hand in creating these amazing displays.

The Sandias generally appear red (as in this photo) during a sunset.
This redness is how they got the name "Sandia" which means "watermelon" in Spanish.
The Native Americans have other names for the mountain...
one is "Oku Pin," or "Turtle Mountain."

As it was, I only began arming myself with a camera the day I missed, possibly, the greatest Sandia rainbow shot there ever was. I'll never forget that day... nor the rainbow... the huge arc of which was centered perfectly over Sandia Crest, and (believe it or not) there were rays coming out of the mountain like the spokes of a wheel touching that rainbow... as if holding it aloft in the air.

Below (and above) is the one rainbow I did capture.

I was only able to fit a portion of this immense rainbow into
the camera frame.

One morning, as I sat in my car in one of my favorite parking lots, the sky suddenly darkened overhead. it appeared as if the fickle New Mexican weather was about to brew up a storm.

A dark wave washes over the Sandias...

I don't remember if rain actually fell that day but the winds grew fairly intense and then my camera caught the most amazing phenomenon: an immense cloud washing over the length of the Sandias like an ocean wave. I really thought I was hallucinating till I was able to upload these shots.

... the length of which was immense.

Observe: the Tsunami Cloud.

A small portion of the tsunami cloud.

I see the mountain and the mountain sees me, And, even if it can't see me, it will remember me... in the same way it is cognizant of the catacomb of minute marine fossils lying under its surface... those of which no eye can detect.

Sandia Crest in the summer with its inevitable cloud canopy.

It will remember that, one summer, there was a large (motorized) black turtle occasionally crouching in its shadows... a battle-scarred turtle to which it once sent two ring-billed seagulls as white as snow. That is all.

***

Ah well, "truth will out" as they say. Yes, the above story is true... written during a week-long hiatus in a motel (which I could finally afford). So, if you've wondered why I've been blogging so sporadically lately, well, now you know: I joined the ranks of the (literally) "mobile" homeless early this summer and have been on the road for the past 6 months.

Time was when "homeless" conjured up the worse nightmares... but, I've known for some time now that homelessness is not a difficult state to achieve. Well,"achieve" hardly seems like the operative term... But, as a matter of sad fact, these days, homeless people - specifically those living in vehicles - almost comprise a new subculture: the traveler.*

Anyway, I had more I wanted to say about the Sandias, traveling, more photos, etc., but time is not of the essence.

But, before I forget, in the event I am not able to come to the table again before the year is out, have yourself as lovely a holiday as possible!

* Actually, some Millennials - many of them females - are living in their cars as a lifestyle choice. A traveler who calls herself Hobo Ahle lives in her van and creates informative YouTube Videos for other travelers such as: Living in a Car: Top 10 Places to Sleep.

Meanwhile, over at HOTTC, Tam B has just posted Of Hauntings and Homelessness with statistics that even surprise me!

Addendum - 1/1/2018

______________________________  

Mount Taranaki.

In a recent comment (as of today) Tam B has relayed to me some important information. (Thanks for the heads-up, sweets!)

As of last month eight Maori tribes (the indigenous people of New Zealand) successfully had their sacred mountain, Mount Taranaki, legally granted the rights of "personhood." I'm not sure if this means the mountain is now a full-fledged citizen, but its new status ensures that it is now more fully protected from the ravages caused by... well, other people!

From the Guardian article New Zealand gives Mount Taranaki same legal rights as a person, we have:

"Eight local Māori tribes and the government will share guardianship of the sacred mountain on the west coast of the North Island, in a long-awaited acknowledgement of the indigenous people’s relationship to the mountain, who view it as an ancestor and whanau, or family member...

The new status of the mountain means if someone abuses or harms it, it is the same legally as harming the tribe.

In the record of understanding signed this week, Mount Taranaki will become “a legal personality, in its own right”, said the minister for treaty negotiations, Andrew Little, gaining similar rights to the Whanganui river, which was granted legal personhood earlier this year.

Little said the agreement offered the best possible protection for the landmark, which is becoming an increasingly popular tourist attraction after Lonely Planet named the Taranaki region the second bet place to visit in the world."

PUEBLO PEOPLE OF NEW MEXICO, TAKE NOTE!

Now's the time.