GrowIng Roses in the Clouds - A Safe Haven (revised and completed May 31)

 

Clouds clustering over the Sandia Mountains (in the distance), Albuquerque, May 19 - cellphone photo - 2025, DS.

"A cloud forest, also called a water forest, primas forest, or tropical montane cloud forest, is generally a tropical or subtropical, evergreen, montane, moist forest characterized by a persistent, frequent or seasonal low-level cloud cover, usually at the canopy level, formally described in the International Cloud Atlas (2017) as silvagenitus ('created from forest')."

- A misty, moisty, mossy forest is the stuff of European folklore and fairy tales... bringing to mind a spooky sort of magic. The true cloud forests (via Wiki) - generally found on cloud-covered mountaintops -  are mostly a phenomenon of tropical climates but they can also be found in temperate zones. The Appalachian mountains are a stunning example. But, can they exist in the American southwest?

Large cluster over the Sandia Mountains, Albuquerque, May 26 - cellphone photo 2025, DS.

Probably not. But, I can dream... and I can wonder about the frequent cloud clusters that seem to stretch over the Sandia mountains, regardless of the weather. The photos above was taken during a bright respite after 2 days of rain but the Sandia cloud phenomenon was the first thing I noticed upon visiting New Mexico and it continued to amaze me all through my peak travelling days.

As for the cloudscapes - or cloud terrains - on top of the Sandia mountains, see the collection of photos linked to from this page, and see if you can find evidence of one. (There is!)

Large cluster over the Sandia Mountains, Albuquerque, May 26 - cellphone photo 2025, DS.

"Monteverde has unquestionably become one of Costa Rica's most popular draws, making it a must-do for 70,000 tourists each year. Its popularity is largely due to its many protected reserves, including the star of the show: the Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological Reserve. Listed in National Geographic and Newsweek as one of the top cloud forest reserves in the world, the government even deemed it one of the Seven Natural Wonders of Costa Rica.

...Interestingly, its origins can be traced to Quakers who settled in the area in the 1950s. After fleeing the US to avoid the Korean War draft, the cool climate of Monteverde allowed them to set up dairy farms in the region."

- Via the article: Ultimate Guide to Monteverde: Costa Rica's Lost World. The photo of a suspension bridge inset left was found in the Wiki entry for the Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological Reserve. Suffice to say, the world's cloud forests are allegedly vanishing... however, dreams of cloud cities begin to arise.

"Roses – native or naturalized wild roses, old roses (dating prior to the development of hybrid tea roses in 1867), and modern cultivars grow well in New Mexico. Perhaps you’ve admired them blooming in summer, in filtered light along mountain trails and in canyons, on abandoned homesteads or historic sites, and along irrigation ditches and streams, as well as in urban gardens."

- Excerpt from an illuminating article from the Santa Fe Botanical Garden. According to the article there are five species of wild roses native to New Mexico! The photo (Credit: Paul Rothrock) inset left is of an Asian, naturalized variety: Rosa multiflora. Allegedly, this beauty is considered an invasive species, but, in my estimation, if roses were invasive we would all live in paradise.

(Continued below the jump...)

Higher Ground - A Meme

Devi Vijaya Lakshmi - the Lakshmi of Victory - a colorfully painted statue - G - DS - 2024.

In the Hindu understanding of the cosmos, the female counterpart of Vishnu - Lakshmi - is the Devi, or goddess, of prosperity... "who is the guiding light for the world - who has obtained the sustained (continued, everlasting) glance (Grace) from Brahma."

Also: "She is often depicted sitting upon a lotus and adorned with lotus at her hands and feet. Many of her names, Padmā, Kamalā, Ambujā, refer to the lotus. The lotus has powerful symbolism in Hinduism. While its roots are in the mud, its stalk rises clearly through the murky water, with its petals blossoming above, untouched by the mud. It is a symbol of rising above the material world through divinity, of being good in the midst of negative influences."

You will note how precisely the figure of the Devi fits within the Golden Egg I transposed over it. I have seen this phi configuration often in depictions of Hindu goddesses, reminding us that the pentagonal golden spiral is very prominent in ancient Near & Middle Eastern art. See my Paisley post.

Lakshmi was first introduced on this blog in this post. (Shyamala Gopalan didn't name her daughter Kamala Devi for nothing. She saw the future.)

(For more images of this beautiful Devi, try here.)

***

prosperous (adj.)

synonyms: thriving, doing well, fortunate, successful, lucky, rich, vigorous, roaring, strong, productive, flourishing, booming, opulent, golden...

antonyms: depressed, poor.

- Via Google/Oxford Languages. Prosperous is a word few of us can really wrap our heads around. Why is this?

I see them every day now in southwestern Albuquerque... more of them, and more frequently: the misfortunate nomads - the darker side of the American dream - wheeling their life's belongings in shopping carts down the vacant streets with no destination... no protection, no peace. They appear to be American refugees of every description. While I was never one of them, I, too, was homeless - and, theoretically, still am - but the emergence of the new Traveler or Nomad and the plight of the disenfranchised is not a recent development. I began living in my car the year following Trump's inauguration. And, then, came the Black Hole - the Pandemic. We all know the rest.

It is true: we - none of us - can "go back"; "back" no longer exists as we once knew it.

(Continued below the jump...)

Five Spirals for December - #5 Song of the Morning by Nicholas Roerich

Song of the Morning, 1920, Nicholas Roerich. Nicholas Roerich Museum, NY.
Geometry: 2023, DS.

"The Awareness of beauty will save the world."

- Nicholas Roerich

"The pursuit of refinement and beauty was sacred for Roerich. He believed that although earthly temples and artifacts may perish, the thought that brings them into existence does not die but is part of an eternal stream of consciousness—man’s aspirations nourished by his directed will and by the energy of thought. Finally, he believed that peace on Earth was a prerequisite to planetary survival and the continuing process of spiritual evolution, and he exhorted his fellow man to help achieve that peace by uniting in the common language of Beauty and Knowledge.

...Nicholas Roerich died in Kullu on December 13, 1947. His body was cremated and its ashes buried on a slope facing the mountains he loved and portrayed in many of his nearly seven thousand works.

As he wrote: 'Let us be united—you will ask in what way? You will agree with me: in the easiest way, to create a common and sincere language. Perhaps in Beauty and Knowledge.'"

 - All quoted text above was sourced from Roerich.org. - the first (and most comprehensive) port of call for all things Roerich. But, the story of Russian Symbolist painter, Nicholas Roerich and his wife Helena is unusually extensive. The couple's Neo-Theosophical spiritualism was particularly influential in the States in the earlier half of the 20th century; so influential that there is actually a term for it: Roerichism. It is hard to believe that the Roerichs somehow faded into obscurity in America during the latter half of the century but they did.

(Note: Nicholas Roerich was first introduced on this blog in the Nijinsky post.)

"In December 1923, Roerich and his family arrived in Darjeeling, India in search of a mythical kingdom called “Shambhala”. Not to be found on any map, the Roerichs travelled across 25,000 kilometres of uncharted road to find the Kingdom that the Buddhists, Hindus, Tibetans and local healers so firmly believed in.

According to legend, with the spread of materialism, humanity would deteriorate and the people of Earth would unite under an Evil leader. This leader would attack the Kingdom of Shambhala with  terrible weapons and that’s when he would be defeated, ushering in a new Golden Era of peace and harmony. "

- Via the fascinating article: Explore the Himalayas : Paintings by Nicholas Roerich. Regarding the legend of the "evil world leader"... well, if prophetic, the question might be: which one?

The Hunt, 1937, Nicholas Roerich.

"Through the desolate summits swept raging intermittent gusts of the terrible antarctic wind; whose cadences sometimes held vague suggestions of a wild and half-sentient musical piping, with notes extending over a wide range, and which for some subconscious mnemonic reason seemed to me disquieting and even dimly terrible. Something about the scene reminded me of the strange and disturbing Asian paintings of Nicholas Roerich, and of the still stranger and more disturbing descriptions of the evilly fabled plateau of Leng which occur in the dreaded Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred."

- A paragraph from At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft. Interestingly, Lovecraft references Roerich's "strange" paintings of the Himalayans several times during the tale. The painting above might be an example of what Lovecraft had in mind.

"Through his spiritual journeys into the Himalayas, Roerich also developed a deep sense of the role that the feminine principle had in the evolvement of humanity. Several of his paintings depict this importance, particularly, The Mother of the World. The Letters of Helena Roerich, written by his wife, explains the importance of this work: “The ‘Mother of the World’ is at the head of the Great Hierarchy of Light of our planet. Read in the Cryptograms of the East the narrative about the Mother of the World, and accept it as the highest reality.”

Helena Roerich further explains the inspiration for the painting, 'The star of the Mother of the World is the planet Venus. In 1924 this planet for a short time came unusually near to the Earth. Its rays were poured on Earth, and this created many new powerful and sacred combinations which will yield great results. Many feminine movements were kindled by these powerful rays.'"

- Via this Theosophical article: Nicholas Roerich: The Treasures Within.

Roerich was very close to his wife Helena. One might say they enjoyed a soul-mate relationship. Both were feminists and it was their belief in the World Mother that brought them into conflict with the Russian Orthodox Church (see: Sophiology) . Inset left is one version of the Mother of the World painted by Roerich in 1937.* The reference to Venus as the Mother's Star is interesting, and in the course of this post we will meet another reference.

***

There's something very special about the woman in Roerich's Song of the Morning.

To begin with, she's extremely beautiful. She's a brown woman... possibly Mongolian... with a fruit-of-the-earth, nuts and berries kind of beauty... but, she has another outstanding feature...

100 Degrees in the Shade

 

"Driving down those city streets waiting to get down

Won't you get your big machine somewhere in this town?"

I was compelled to get online this morning and listen to this 1981 song. I am now compelled to post it to this blog. No, it's not exactly a traveling tune... more of a summer-in-the-city kind of thing. 100 degrees in the shade and counting. Ladies & gentlemen, Grace Jones!

Oh, and Grace's cover of La Vie en Rose is to die for. More Grace... and more!

Via the Telegraph: Hula-hooping topless at 74, Grace Jones launches Meltdown with a thrilling sense of danger 

The Traveler Takes a Dive

 

 

"Kill the headlights and put it in neutral
Stock car flamin' with a loser and the cruise control
Baby's in Reno with the vitamin D
Got a couple of couches sleep on the love seat
Someone keeps sayin I'm insane to complain
About a shotgun wedding and a stain on my shirt
Don't believe everything that you breathe
You get a parking violation and a maggot on your sleeve
So shave your face with some mace in the dark
Savin' all your food stamps and burnin' down the trailer park
 
(Yo, cut it.)
 
Soy un perdedor
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?"

- Lyrics from I'm a Loser (Soy un perdedor) - 1993, Beck, Carl Stephenson.

"Forces of evil in a bozo nightmare"

I haven't listened to this song by Beck in a long time. And, then, about 2 days ago - like a bolt from the blue - it started running through my head non-stop.

So, as these (spontaneously emerging) tunes are generally the kinds of tunes I tend to post, I put it up. But, first, I listened to it on YouTube because I did wonder about it. Usually, an unconsciously inspired tune relates to some aspect of my life I haven't really expressed as of late... and, as is also usual with these tunes, they don't stop running through my head until I pin them down and decipher the message.

"Loser" was always an ironic video (and it has a good back-beat), but, now, in 2022, I detected a darker aspect I hadn't really noticed in 1994. Oddly enough, the first thing I surmised was that Beck had once been homeless. My second idea was that I was merely projecting.  But, as it turns out, I was right the first time. According to Wiki, he had become homeless just before he wrote the song, "Loser."

"(In 1989...) daunted by the prospect of another homeless New York winter, Beck returned to his home of Los Angeles in early 1991. 'I was tired of being cold, tired of getting beat up,' he later remarked. 'It was hard to be in New York with no money, no place... I kinda used up all the friends I had. Everyone on the scene got sick of me.'

...By 1993, Beck was living in a rat-infested shed near a Los Angeles alleyway with little money. Bong Load issued 'Loser' as a single in March 1993 on 12" vinyl with only 500 copies pressed. Beck felt that 'Loser' was mediocre, and only agreed to its release at Rothrock's insistence."

Of course, this may just be something out of a press kit, but I think it's quite possibly true. I think I recognized this song and, for a homeless person, it's actually a very powerful song. In fact, I would say it's a Traveler's song... conveying the sort of attitude that, perhaps, the  world's refugees should share: if you imagine I am a lesser person because of my present fate,  then, wake up. Bad luck is like a car crash... a flood... a tornado... or being struck by lightening; you're in the wrong place at the wrong time; there's no reasoning with it and it's impersonal. Or, as my friend, Moo, once planned to use as her epitaph: "But, whatever was good... didn't happen."

And, it's not happening to a lot of people these days. Including me.

Welcome to the New Mexican Lottery...

Mystical Sandia Crest - The Lost Mountain

(Between the large cloud (in the image above) and the rooftops of human dwellings in the foreground is an unusual, undulating veil of mist striated with the sun's rays. Beneath the veil - stretched out from left to right and lying in shadow - is Sandia Crest, the main body of the Sandia Mountains. This is a cell-phone photograph shot in late March of 2018 while I was still living on the road. It is amongst my last photos of the Sandia Mountains. The rest will appear further on in the post: formally the last post of the Traveler & the Mountain series. (Part 1 & Part 2). Click on all images for larger view.)

***

"The sense of the sacred does not require any image of the gods. There will be no more gothic cathedrals built to exalt humankind to the heavens; no more prophets to lead humankind to the divine; and no more Holy Grails to entice humankind upon the Quest – we now have the sacred suffusing us en masse, manifesting as both the tangible and intangible. Our cultures are being finely renewed from the inside-out by a subtle vibration that has come to us through a myriad of emanations in different forms.

Our ancestors were aware that they lived in a sacred cosmos, where the physical world existed in communion with the unseen dimension which ensouled and sanctified it. There was no rigid line drawn between what was the inner world and what was external reality, because both domains were in correspondence. The individual human soul was a part of the greater sacred reality. And just as the sacred is an instrument of the human, so the human is an instrument of the sacred. The sacred worldview is one that accepts not only the metaphysical but also the magical and the mysterious – the magnificent wonder in everything and all. As the Greek Orphic Mysteries of 2,500 years ago spoke: ‘I am a child of earth and starry heaven, but my race is of heaven alone.’"

- Via Kingsley L. Dennis’s Reality Sandwich article: Magic Never Died: The Sacred is Still Alive.

"There is, we feel, something different about a sacred mountain which cannot be easily explained, something that makes it exceptional. It possesses a kind of energy that’s unique to itself, which can be sensed and felt as much as seen. It draws people to it…inexplicably, mysteriously: 'The power of such a mountain,' writes Lama Anagarki Govinda,
'is so great and yet so subtle that without compulsion pilgrims are drawn to the mountain from near and far, as if by the force of some invisible magnet, and they will undergo untold hardships and privations in their inexplicable urge to approach and to worship the sacred spot. Nobody has conferred the title of sacredness upon such a mountain; by virtue of its own magnetic and psychic emanations the mountain is intuitively recognized to be sacred. It needs no organizer of its worship; innately, each of its devotees feels the urge to pay it reverence.'"

- Via a 2017 Graham Hancock article written by Dustin Naef: Mount Shasta: California’s Mysterious Mountain.

***

The mountain lies in its own protected dimension.

It asks nothing from the world of women and men... 

except, perhaps, their acknowledgement... and wonder.

It does not ask for reverence... and, yet, it is revered by all those who witness it. It has little contact with humanity... and, yet, its presence orders human lives.

Found flying above the Sandias 2 days ago. DS

For instance, the mountain orders the weather.

It orders tides where there are none... and clouds where there are many.

It orders birds... and birds are made.

Although the mountain does not order the sun, it sometimes orders the clouds to appear in the setting sun's nightly stage production... a very colorful event!

But, in the end, the Sandias serve a larger, mythological purpose...

Pandemic Moments: Masks and Binaries

Is there anybody out there?
Or, as Dorothy Parker once said:
"What fresh hell is this?"

(Note: The poem which originally appeared in this spot has moved to an area below the jump.)

In a word: "Fuck."

I was going to put up several different posts during the last few months but - as you may have noticed - I was not successful. And, then - presto change-o - along came the ongoing pandemic pandemonium (you know the one) and suddenly a surreal, inexplicable sci-fi miasma fell upon us: the world went on hold, governments went bat-shit, small businesses went down the tubes, Wall Street imploded, people began dying off at a rapid rate, and, all the while, not a soul knows which end is up or what's going down apart from some mysterious, virulent DISEASE (origin unknown) which, if it isn't poised to dive into your proverbial blow-hole, is climbing into your eyeballs or insinuating itself under your skin.

The graphic featuring van Gogh inset left pretty much sums up my response. (Thanks, BG!)

In the end, I realized I couldn't bring myself to post anything... at the same time feeling I MUST avoid all reference to the present global affairs. I've had enough of contaminants in my recent past, and enough of various forms of "official" posturing (predominately from affluent male sources and without meaningful content) to last several lifetimes. Perhaps, I'll have something to say when the dust clears. Perhaps, not.

But, if you're reading this, I'm going to assume you're not seeking the expected... nor obligatory blah-bah regarding current events. Good. Because neither are my strong suit. Moreover, due to my continuing refugee status, isolation-at-home does not seem like a half-bad state of affairs. In other words, if I had a home I'd be quite happy staying in it, thank you! As for social distancing, well, for introverts and all those people whose job it is to magically pull attractive and meaningful things out of their heads (and hands), it's a requirement.

Admittedly, I am in the throes of new art projects... which will hopefully be revealed in future Pandemic Moments. Meanwhile, the two photos of myself  (taken by myself) document a couple of failed attempts creating masks. I did wear the blue one (at the top of the post) a few times while wandering about in the Outside but, ultimately, facial coverings - although useful for espionage - kind of give me the heebie-jeebies when everyone is wearing one. On the other hand, there's something to be said for face coverings. One reveals absolutely nothing. Stay tuned: with a little more innovation, they could become the Next Big Fashion Trend!

Back to the Mountain

It snowed in the Sandias the other day for the first time this season - you might say my third "saison en enfer" - and, although I had just shot some mountain photos over the weekend (above and after the jump) well, I had to drive back. It is, after all, both my mission and my pleasure (emphasis on pleasure).

Speaking of which, and for the record, I'm holed up in a motel again... attempting to recuperate from a respiratory infection that's been going around as of late. It's one of the hazards of the road. More human contact = more human contagions. Can't get around it. 

The good news is that I'm sleeping in a real bed again. (Ah, the luxury!) And, for this brief respite, I have a benevolent cousin and her husband to thank, who (graciously) contributed to the "cause" (i.e., my survival) this Christmas; thereby prompting me to amend this statement from my previous post: "because, quite literally, it is my friends, and only my friends, who are currently keeping me alive." In reality, family members, too, are a portion of our human equation. You'll have to forgive me; no longer having an immediate family, I forget this at times.

On the other hand, for the sake of accuracy, perfect strangers sometimes arrive out of the blue, too, lending a helping hand when least expected. For instance, at one of my lowest points earlier in the survival game, a man I never met nor even saw before suddenly approached me while I sat in my vehicle in a department store parking lot, handing me $40 (!) and saying: "Homelessness can happen to anybody." I wouldn't take his money at first, but he wouldn't take no for an answer, briskly getting in his car and driving away before any of this could register. Later, I wondered, could this have been an angelic encounter? But, no, I'm fairly certain now - despite his timely (but unwarranted) generosity - he was, indeed, a human. It took some time for me to process the information, but, well, there you have it. Humans can be unbelievably kind with no ulterior motives at all. File that in your memory banks for a rainy day...

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...