Existentialism

I grew up knowing the mountains were the earth’s arms embracing me.

This is the time of year you can really see the bones of the mountains. Spring and summer the mountains in full canopy can remind you of a fluffy green cumulous cloud, with the occasional thunderous spike of grandmother pine. When the leaves turn and then fall, they become a great fluffy quilt on the high poster bed. But by now, just before the leaves peak out bright chartreuse, the near naked old bones of the mountains become visible.

The bones of the mountains speak to me. Sometimes they are an old lady in a squeaky rocking chair, and sometimes a sleepy dragon’s sharp backbones. Sometimes they whisper and sometimes they vibrate without sound, speaking through my feet. They speak volumes and sometimes they use words.

I could tell you what the mountains and trees and running creeks have to say, but you wouldn’t believe me. You have to understand it yourself, and to do that you have to listen, and to listen you have to live in it, and to live in it you have to get beyond the noise.

It is because of the way of life. If you don’t live it, you don’t know it. When you raise your own food you know you are not different from the animals, from the vegetables, from the soil. Dust to dust. There is no dominion, no hierarchy. There is no ego.

Gobbledygook, huh? Well, imagine -- if you dare -- no reference to other.