Message From A Mountain
This is an excerpt from my book, Memoirs of a Middle-aged Hummingbird. It was written in New Zealand on May 3, 1995.
Today I have taken back my solitude and privacy. I have once again hidden my huge self among the clouds and fog, showing nothing, inviting no one. Ah yes, but yesterday — yesterday I was in a different mood. I wanted blue skies and I wanted to see the sun and feel its warmth. And I wanted to meet you.
You were very anxious to see me too. I had tantalized you from your arrival the previous day in the little village that sits below me. I felt your keenness and then your disappointment when you could not find a plane to bring you close to me. You worried all through the night even though I let you see more stars at night than you’d ever seen before to tell you all would be clear the next day. You awoke early to scan the skies and each moment of the deepening dawn showed you I was getting ready to receive you.
You flew up to me with a tingling anticipation. And then your mouth dropped open and your eyes couldn’t open wide enough to take it all in. I felt your exhilaration rising as the plane skied onto Davis Icefield on Franz Josef Glacier. What a pity he never saw his amazing namesake. The first words out of your mouth were, “Oh, my god,” as your feet touched the snow and your eyes looked while you tried to absorb what it was like to be where you could never walk to. Yes, you were on top of the world for ten ecstatic minutes. You knew you could never take in all the sights, pure silence, and the cleanest air, so you just “felt” it. I could sense you feeling absolutely wonderful and free — so free.
You looked, you clicked and clicked and then thought you must have taken enough pictures. But, “I must change to a new roll before we begin to fly again,” you thought. And so you finished the roll with gay abandon, hoping for that once-in-a-lifetime photo to make you remember.
But you will remember those ten short minutes that are etched into your mind. The utter high you felt was a pure happiness. Little filled your mind except that you must soon leave, most likely never to come again. The snow was the deepest, cleanest white, and the sky the very bluest blue. The ocean was visible in the distance. Only the shadows of the rocks towering above added other shades of color. Perhaps you will never again be so free or feel so good, so high in body and spirit. But perhaps experiencing this will make you open to such experiences elsewhere.
When you put one knee down on the many years’ accumulation of deep ice, you felt my coldness and wetness. And when you tried to change the roll of film, your fingers were too numb to do it easily. I had shown you only my gentle side, but I wanted to remind you of the boundary between you and me. We are connected, but we are not one. I can destroy you utterly, or be benign. But today I was playful, like you.
As you rose once again into the air, I let you see my wrinkled and glacier-ridged face. You could not close your mouth as you went around 12,300 foot Mt. Cook. You only knew how to click madly, hopefully, as you felt only awe and my power emanating around you.
It was then that you lost your atheism. You were always spiritually attuned to nature, which easily spoke to you and you to it. In Bali, you understood that nature was your god. You had never felt any other god. It is not the god of Christians or Jews or Moslems, but the animistic god Balinese understand. I am not the god of love, or of people particularly. I am the majesty as I allowed you to see me and feel me and react to me on that Wednesday, the 3rd of May, 1995.
When you got off the plane, you tried to convey your gratitude to the pilot. Basically, and uncharacteristically for you, you were struck speechless and walked around quite dazed by the intensity of what you had felt in 60 minutes.
Exhausted, but also restless, you walked alone in the semi-tropical rainforest so unbelievably close to the glaciers. You watched the frolicking, but dangerous rapids of the glacial river and remembered a scene elsewhere — a memory of similar places in other countries you have visited. But never had you come so close to me before. There were no memories for that.
I showed you clearly how insignificant you are, but you had felt like an inconsequential grain of sand for many long years. That’s why a god of love and caring and answering your prayers never made any impact upon you. But you are a part of nature by your being. That is your connectedness to all else, something else, outside yourself.
In the dying of the day, you came to look up at me again. The reflected rays of sunset turned me and the surrounding forested hills to a warm, golden hue. The light slowly moved across my face and I saluted you in farewell. You will not see me again, but you will remember. You are mzima, whole and well.
Tags: Davis Icefield, Franz Josef Glacier, Mt. Cook, New Zealand, Travel
