Blue Mountains Constantly Walking

Loop of Lazy Lightning must admit you’re kind of frightening, but you really get me high” Lazy Lightning

On a Thursday night an epic saga played out in the sky featuring a plethora of Thunder Dragons making love with wild abandon, lightning and thunder crashed through endless mountains. The guttural growl of nature rolled around as if set inside a vast drum. Violet forks of light crackled up from the valley floor towards my ascetic hut. It was as if I was witnessing the end or beginning of the place known as “the world” I lay in bed deep into the wee hours reading Gary Snyder’s “The Practice of the Wild” with eyes wide with wonder. Sometime in the midst of my reading and the waves of rain (evaporated river water) the phone rang. It was UK Dave from Southern Bhutan. We had a nice chat before the phone cut out. He gave me an account of his own tribulations and a second hand account of fellow teacher’s trials. Paraphrasing his own words, “It seems everyone is going through a rough patch now.” Of course I hate to think of my colleagues struggling but at the same time it provides solace. This is not an easy trip for even the hardiest soul.  

But it has its rewards now and again. Friday morning was the clearest day ever seen in my Bhutan. I could see farther down the chain of mountains clear into India. The rolling landscape folding in on itself again and again into a narrow corridor, until it was blocked by a wall of snow crowned peaks. The view was like putting on eye glasses after a lifetime of low vision. The contours of the slopes in sharp contrasts, as if I would bump into them with each step. The river far below seemed close enough to sip. The tawny massifs now seemed purple and washed as I could see the giant bushy tree of Kinney miles away down the thin line of a dirt road. And the sky a rare sapphire color instead of its usual faded grey appearance. The world seemed brand new, an acid-scape of vibrating molecules. This place which holds the secret of the universe, open as a woman her bedroom eyes beckoning. I knew in my heart just like that woman that this would be a fleeting view, slowly fading in the haze. I cherished the morning listening to the earth exhale and the river quietly singing its song on the valley floor. A man combined in the oneness of the universe, its blue mountains constantly walking.   

Forever Grateful, TKG