Mother Mountain. Teach me to see like you do. Infuse me with information from your layers of growth. I want to feel every footstep that has touched your stone and plains. Whisper yor secrets in the wind, I am here to listen. I give myself fully to you as I enter your realms. Encode me, embrace me, endance me.
So goes the prayers as we move higher and higher, and the air gets thinner. Every breath becomes a reminder of the fragility of the ecological systems upholding our existence. The weather changes fast in the queendom of Sagarmatha. We are on top of the world, her mountains are like no others I have ever seen. They have appeared in my dreams and meditations, the white snake / seti nag and her wisdom.. The large rocks encarved with the om mani pade hum prayer. The message is simple - hail to the jewel in the lotus flower. From the depths of your existence, honour the sacred spark of light in your Self.
Even the flora speaks with familiar colours. Above the rainforests and humidity of the plains in the South, the struggle for survival is harder, but those plants who manage will enjoy the views of the arid Himalayan wilderness. A symphony of bluebells, røsslyng, rosehip, tindve, rogn and rhododendron slowly uncovering their autumn finest.
The elders living here still have a deep relationship with the spirits of the plants. I watch as the local shaman carefully caresses a juniper branch we will offer to the goddess. Close my eyes. Was this how Shiva felt when he became one with the mountains of Kailash? Opening the space between my cells and molecules, breathing with my whole being, becoming one with Her.
At one point I was standing in an amethyst-glowing Rhododendron forest as the moon rose over Tengboche Monastery at the foothills of Chumalungma. The silver grey stems of the sacred plant wove spirals around me, black crows danced on the remnant sunbeams, sweeping the goddess peaks in golden warmth. Feeling clean. Pure.
I know these paths, I have walked them before. I have taken in the aroma of warm sand blended with dry pine throughout my childhood in Norway. I recognize the sound of the yak bells and the murmurs of Tibetan devotional scripture from villagers in the morning. Praising this feeling of recognition, I draw another breath and take another step towards our destination, Tengpoche, meaning ‘sacred footprint’. I am home now, though I am far away.
