Leaping, & These Mountains: A Poem

As my writing practice, and creativity in general, has been stuck for some time, I’ve decided to take a rather large leap of faith. 

Early next month I will be participating in a writing program called Writing the Wild Soul, run by Soulcraft Australia, in partnership with the Animas Valley Institute (founded by depth psychologist and wilderness guide, Bill Plotkin, in Colorado, USA). I am a little scared and apprehensive, for this will be a physical, psychological and emotional challenge; but I am also excited and hopeful. I want this course, however difficult it may be, to shake myself out of stagnation, and propel me into a new psychic and creative landscape, from which deeper work may emerge. This is not only important for my own health—as I have found writing to be such an important healing practice—but also for my participation in the larger web of relationship, both human and more-than-human.

I am looking forward to finding out what the land has to tell me, what songs the mountains sing, what wisdom the trees can offer, and writing down what I hear and feel. Perhaps I will return transformed, ready to speak with a renewed voice.

In preparation, I have already been writing some intuitive pieces, responding both to words/images from poetry, and to nature, as I sit on the deck of my studio and scribble away in my notebook. I will share some of what I have written over the next few weeks. In the meantime, here is something to whet your appetite. In addition, one of my previous poems, ‘An Everywhen’, has just been shared on the Soulcraft Australia blog.

These Mountains

These mountains which were never mine 

year after year have remade me.

~ Robert Bringhurst, ‘Jacob Singing’

These mountains that form my skin

my flesh and bone. What part of me 

do they not make? My eyes see 

through mineral facets, crystal shards 

that absorb light and create colour

Elementary particles are all that I am

in body; yet there is an animating force—

the mountain’s heart, the breath of the 

green world, sustaining and cultivating life

Small beings lift themselves towards the light 

while rooted in darkness, the source of our yearning

The unknown is where we speak from, bowing low 

to the original language of being, the inherent meaning 

that resides in matter

Year after year we are remade from earth’s source

from mountaintop, dust, tree, feather

from wind and song

To be sourceless, unmade, is to be adrift in meaninglessness

the only permanent death

My source is the mountains, the heights and valleys

the caves and cliffs: sandstone, granite, clay

Ancient and eroded, mist-kissed and sun-warmed

often impenetrable, holding back secret places

hidden worlds that feed us with mystery

My own body does not belong to me, though 

it is mine, and is me, my own small mountain

mineral-laden and sky-filled. I bleed just as they do

and will one day return to them what I had only 

borrowed