The mountain itself—
unchanging.

(No. 82 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)

Mt. Ellinor is in the southeastern Olympic Mountains, another favorite of us locals. It’s a steep climb, but there’s an improved trail to the top which makes it accessible. On this holiday a dramatic shift in weather occurred, catching many visitors ill-prepared.

Cold Mountain No. 82 (Burton Watson translation) is one of the most familiar of Han-shan’s poems:

People ask the way to Cold Mountain.
Cold Mountain? There is no road that goes through.
Even in summer the ice doesn’t melt;
Though the sun comes out, the fog is blinding.
How can you hope to get there by aping me?
Your heart and mine are not alike.
If your heart were the same as mine,
Then you could journey to the very center!

More than almost any of Han-shan’s poems, this one should probably be approached as a koan, a sort of Zen teaching story that typically puts you between a rock and a hard spot, a box canyon with no way out. So a Zen teacher might demand, “Show me Cold Mountain!” As ever, it is right beneath your feet–even as you get the hell off Mt. Ellinor while the getting is good!

(Numeric reference to Han-shan’s poem reflects the order of presentation in Burton Watson’s translation, presented as Cold Mountain, Columbia University Press, 1970.)

Outside my window
a varied thrush, dressed
for upland migration,
beckons. I step onto the porch,
hear a spotted towhee as it shuffles the ground;
note movement in the red stem dogwood—
someone with white eye streak, but not
a nuthatch. Now a strange
warbling from those cedars—
a traveler, not yet
revealed.

I have learned many things in varied realms from my daughter.  Of course, she serves as my tech advisor and is the webmistress of this blog.  She is, by some reckonings, a “cultural creative/early adapter.”  If the Zeitgeist has waves, Ariel somehow manages to surf the big forward curl.  I’d long noticed and forgiven her tendency to plug into Internet ethers several times each hour.  After all, it could be very useful (see Reality Check under 2007 archives).  But I wasn’t surprised when she decided the time had come to sign off a night a week.  Instantly the press picked up on this (she’s well connected to media), and once again she landed precisely in the cultural pocket.  

I was, myself, clicking away, mind off in virtual gabfests,  when the above mentioned thrush said Hey!

Visits to seldom seen family can be enlightening. On this early Denver evening former boundaries between the banal and exotic interwove, making both seem oddly detached and disembodied. Whatever it is that is happening in our culture is breathtaking, anything but mundane.  However, at least one thing remains clear–in one way or another, mom will always be screwing with a man’s libido.

(No. 88 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)

My backpack, passport to back country, is also a surrogate for my body. Of course, a backpack needs to move like an extension of one’s body, especially for off trail hiking, and it also needs to reflect what one is capable of carrying. Otherwise the pain outweighs the joy, and tiredness precipitates accidents. So, as the years go by, my focus must be on lightening my load–a near spiritual fiddling. There are lots of good resources, including friends, who support these somewhat obsessive endeavors.

Of course the whole point is to allow communing with God’s country for as long as possible.

(Numeric reference to Han-shan’s poem reflects the order of presentation in Burton Watson’s translation, presented as Cold Mountain, Columbia University Press, 1970.)

(North Fork of the Teannaway, 2005)

(No. 98 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)

Each summer my old backpacking buddy Bruce and I spend most of a week further refining the art of “alpine loafing.”  This term refers to a sustained state of deep repose in God’s Country—for which one has to pay considerable dues in getting to and from.  Bruce usually pushes us in the direction of steeper and longer climbs.  Most often my role is to keep the equation balanced in favor of loafing over grunting. 

It’s always interesting to see where we get to and how we got there.  Sooner or later, we consistently manage to enter the loaf zone.  Invariably we are surprised, amazed at its restful quality, its beauty and power. 

This poem describes such a moment.

(Numeric reference to Han-shan’s poem reflects the order of presentation in Burton Watson’s translation, presented as Cold Mountain, Columbia University Press, 1970.)

Fingers brush my left hand—
a question I lightly
answer. We forage a silent path
within deep woods,
curl around each other,
nurture ourselves
with minute movements.
Forever.

When we must rise
I kiss her ear, Thanks—
and let go.

Already daffodils and wood hyacinths
raise their green spikes.
Alder tassels make ready,
and soon Pacific tree frogs
will chirr spring’s chaos.

(A response to Zen Master Ikkyu’s 15th century Poem Presented to My Friend Ako at the Hot Spring)

It was the penultimate day of 2007–no better time to unlimber Gabrielle Roth’s “5 Rhythms” to dance out the old year and welcome the new one. On that dance floor dojo and in the delicacy of that hand I experienced a reawakening.

Here’s that old rascal, Ikkyu:

Poem Presented to My Friend Ako at the Hot Spring

It is nice to get a glimpse of a lady bathing–
you scrubbed your flower face and cleansed your lovely body
while this old monk sat in the hot water,
feeling more blessed than even the emperor of China!

(trans. John Stevens)

(No. 86 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)

Marmot Pass is the crown jewel of the northeast Olympic Mountains, a real favorite of folks around here. Alone or with friends, I climb to the early melt ridges above the pass, and beyond, once or twice a year. I’ve gotten lost in white outs up there twice now, had the pee quietly scared out of me each time. On one of those occasions I managed to use compass bearings and good luck to make it out in the dark–I found trail very near “the Source,” as I have come to think of the artesian spring that pops out ground at the beginning of this poem. Water collected from the Source on that occasion still graces my meditation altar.

The silence of this place is shocking. What sounds occur are so true that they are no different from the silence.

(Numeric reference to Han-shan’s poem reflects the order of presentation in Burton Watson’s translation, presented as Cold Mountain, Columbia University Press, 1970.)

(No. 79 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)

You might well ask why a fellow with Buddhist inclinations even had a nearby can of hornet and wasp spray. Perhaps because I’m practical, or maybe for the same reason the Polistes fuscatus has repetitive stinging capacity. In short, I don’t know.

But in much the same way that Poe’s fisherman was saved from a giant Atlantic vortex (in A Descent Into the Maelstrom) by his sense of the whirlpool’s beauty and awe, here was a moment of complete, eye-level realization of the exquisiteness of another species.

(Numeric reference to Han-shan’s poem reflects the order of presentation in Burton Watson’s translation, presented as Cold Mountain, Columbia University Press, 1970.)

Ariel and her husband, Dre, and I were backpacking in Teannaway River country last summer, just east of the Cascade crest. It was pouring on the Washington coast, and this was our dependably drier fallback location. We were climbing an old favorite of mine, the ridge above Bean Creek Basin, when the lovely stickseed, not yet identified, waved hello.

(No. 71 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)

Toleak Point lies south of La Push on the Olympic wilderness coast in northwest Washington State. I have regularly visited this coastline for many years, usually backpacking alone.

As the Heart Sutra clarifies, there is “no old age and death, and also no ending of old age and death.” Just so.

(Numeric reference to Han-shan’s poem reflects the order of presentation in Burton Watson’s translation, presented as Cold Mountain, Columbia University Press, 1970.)