Two songs are in my head now. More relevant to mountain as metaphor is 1960s’ folk troubadour Donovan’s “There Is A Mountain.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8utgCo86lpo
Kind of reminds me of Max’s experience: “First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is.”

More relevant to my own lifelong fascination with literal mountains is an old one by Canadian singer and songwriter Bruce Cockburn (pronounced CO-burn, for those who aren’t familiar with him and might be prone to making snickering jokes ). I’ve often quoted one little line in his song “Northern Lights”: “I’ve been cut by the beauty of jagged mountains.” The entire verse, and the one that follows, is this: “I’ve been cut by the beauty of jagged mountains/And cut by the love that flows like a fountain from God//So I carry these scars, precious and rare/And tonight I feel like I’m made of air.” (Can’t find a video but here are the lyrics http://www.uulyrics.com/music/bruce-cockburn/song-northern-lights/ )

As Bruce implies, mountains can give you cuts that scar for life. As a child I lived in the Rocky Mountain area and I still miss being near mountains. There are times here on the Edge of Nowhere, Texas, where large dark banks of clouds appear on the horizon, usually around dusk, and if I look at them just right, maybe out of the corner of my eye, they look more than anything else like not-so-distant mountains. I am suddenly transported to an entirely different place. I am in a mountain town again.

When I was a kid my family would often take weekend drives up into the mountains of Colorado. My mom usually got altitude headaches, my sister sometimes got carsick, and we fought and scrapped like families do on car trips. Yet we would enjoy ourselves anyway, though I went through a brief spell where the mountains frightened me. I was the opposite of Max, who wanted so much to be “on the mountain.” My fear stemmed, I think, from a series of dreams I had been having, dreams where I was just walking along and suddenly found myself butt up against a mountain, or, in some other dreams, against the stars in the night sky, as if I were suddenly perceiving the mountain or sky through high-power binoculars. It was a disorienting and sometimes frightening feeling, like abruptly being slammed up against the face of God, though I never thought of it in those terms when I was small.

On one occasion when my family and I were on our weekend jaunt to the mountains I was overwhelmed by a fear, such as I’d had in my dreams, of mountains that were too large, too close, too blue. I begged my parents to turn the car around and go back home. I did not want to face those dream mountains. It was the imagined blueness more than anything that frightened me, which my parents couldn’t figure out, since blue was always my favorite color. They explained patiently that the blue was only an illusion borne of distance, and that when we actually got up close to the mountain it would become as brown and green as the terrain that surrounded us as we were ascending. I was having none of it and still fought against the looming blue of my dreams — that is, until we actually got up there and I saw that my parents were right. And I was even a tad disappointed that the mountains were so mundane and were not that smooth surreal blue after all. I began looking towards the more distant peaks, fearing and longing for them at the same time. Even after that, though, I would have those disturbing and sometimes frightening dreams of mountains or sky being too large, too close. (Obviously I got over my fear of anything being too blue. )

Years after that I read a children’s fantasy tale by Scottish author, poet and minister George MacDonald. The book is *The Princess and Curdie.* It’s about the son of a miner who works inside a mountain, and whose family lives on a cottage on the mountain (Max might enjoy it). At the beginning of the book MacDonald has a long and lyrical description of mountains, of which this passage sticks out for me:

“A mountain is a strange and awful thing. In old times, without knowing so much of their strangeness and awfulness as we do, people were yet more afraid of mountains. But then somehow they had not come to see how beautiful they are as well as awful, and they hated them – and what people hate they must fear. Now that we have learned to look at them with admiration, perhaps we do not feel quite enough awe of them. To me they are beautiful terrors.

“I will try to tell you what they are. They are portions of the heart of the earth that have escaped from the dungeon down below, and rushed up and out. For the heart of the earth is a great wallowing mass, not of blood, as in the hearts of men and animals, but of glowing hot, melted metals and stones. And as our hearts keep us alive, so that great lump of heat keeps the earth alive: it is a huge power of buried sunlight – that is what it is…”
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But enough about me. I do go on about myself sometimes. Mark, seriously, you need to finish that book you’re writing. You’re in the perfect setting for it — a setting that, though I’ve made fun of on more than one occasion for its generally high level of flakes per capita, I kind of envy. But it’s really more of a tug and a longing than real envy. I am thoroughly enchanted by my little spot on the Edge of Nowhere for now, even though there are no mountains other than those illusory ones I see on occasion. Still, I love reading about your adventures on Shasta and I look forward to reading more.

I’ll scuttle on back to Mount Snarky now. Just wanted to drop by your mountain and say hi.

I am pretty sure we’ve got The Alchemist in a box somewhere. It will be good to read it again.

Thank you again… you are so amazing, I woke up this morning thinking about success, wealth, hapiness and all those things, and what is TRULY important in my life and how successful and blessed I am.

You know I credit you for waking me up, YOU facilitated that A-HA moment a couple of years ago when I realized that EVERYTHING i ever wanted, needed, and that is of value is INSIDE of me, and woke me up to the poverty consciousness I was in.. In spite of all my good intentions and everything else…Sheesh!

Life is NOT about the destination, it’s ALL about the journey.. Just finished reading The Alchemist by Paolo Cohelo for the 7th time last week… And that book is all about what you have just written. Have you read it? If not let me know and I will gift you a copy.. YOU and Kathy would LOVE LOVE LOVE this book…

May God bless you, so that you may continue to share your gifts ..

Hugs
Aymee