Here in Tai'an, hitting the hay in the cheapest room we could possibly find in a tourist mecca like this - a super-dingy storage room with a bunkbed and some dirty-ass bordello sheets! Hey, where else ya gonna find a room for 100 qwai in this town during busy season? Tomorrow: up and at 'em to pilgrimage up the slopes of the living god Tai Shan, apparently worshipped by the Zhongguo ren (Chinese people) since before recorded history....
This is a very special trip we'll be making tomorrow, up the holiest mountain in the Taoist culture, and the messages i'm getting right now (including jacking up several key muscles in my back trying to maneuver my pack today) are telling me to SLOW DOWN and drop down into this experience.... So that's what i'm going to do.... IT definitely takes more focus to do what i'm here to do while i'm around Tiffany, and i surmise IT probably would be just as distracting no matter who i was around, if i'm not traveling solo; so perhaps this is part of the lesson involved in this part of the journey: How to do what i'm here to do, and focus the way i'm here to focus, no matter WHO i'm around, and no matter WHAT identity they might expect me to have....
A bedtime note to say: Tiffany and i are hanging in the hammocks on the slopes of Tai Shan, very nearly but not quite at the summit, after a very wonderful and intensely-tiring afternoon of ascending up the winding staircases of this place of pilgrimage....
The full moon beams yellow from a clear night-time sky, the river with ITs waterfalls whispers steadily in the distance; the mountainside is calm, and retains a presence about IT that speaks of many thousands of years in which people have shared the best of themselves here, giving what they have to offer in the climb and offering their energy up to be expanded and dispersed by the gods of the mountain, released back into the world as fortune and celebration! A cycle of honor and cooperation, highlighting the tandemic functioning between the terrestrial and the celestial.... a place for men and gods to meet and embrace! IT is an honor for me to climb these stairs upon which so many have trod, and i go to sleep in amongst the sacred forest tonight knowing that i rest in fine company throughout the human continuum.... Many thanks and great gratitude to our collective ancestors, who have watched over all our journeys and helped us all along the way....
Sunrise on Tai Shan!
.... From a hanging spot just off the main drag at the top of Tai Shan:
The Holy Mountain has officially done me in! i haven't felt this done for a looong time; everything in my body is weak and operating at half-speed no matter what i tell IT, my consciousness is beyond presence or clarity, and am hacking up gut-wrenching coughs like an eighty-year old man! i woke up coughing stuff up this morning, and i feel like my whole system is wide-open to the sickness in my lungs right now.... i only hope i don't keep coughing for the next eleven weeks again.... Spring '09 was no fun for those three months....
So yes, my mind is extremely caught up in my body's BS right now, and IT's going to take some time and composure to get back on track, i think.... Tai Shan was truly hard work for me, and i feel very good that i have given this energy to IT; although on the way up, i had to drop down into the "IT's all over" forced-march mindset that only is reservable for last resorts when things just have to be done and there's no way around them.... IT served ITs purpose, and i had as much fun with IT as possible, while enjoying lots of encouragement from many highly amused day-climbers, most of whom seemed incredulous that two foreign folks were lugging heavy camping packs up the mountain.... i must say, this pilgrimage would have been a LOT easier if IT was just me climbing without the pack; as IT is, i'm currently existing somewhere between the realms of the living and the Undead.... And still, i will drag my bones out of the hammock, and go up packless to the temples at the very tippy-tippy-top points, while Tiffany kindly hangs back with the stuff....
IT's taken us two days, maybe eight-ish hours including all the five & ten-minute breaks, to climb to the top of Tai Shan.... i was definitely not in proper camping-climbing shape on this one! IT looks like we'll be spending the night up here tonight, and concluding the trek with the downhill run tomorrow, which will make Tai Shan a three day round-trip.... wow :-o
The temple of the Jade Emperor, the everlasting monarch of heaven, sits on the highest point atop Tai Shan, in attibutes and appearences clearly much as IT has stood these five or six hundred years.... Now paired with a giant antenna overshadowing his majesty, and a quite-modern radar station right next door, the Jade Emperor appears far more quaint than imperial, ensconced in his beautiful temple where he sits unchanging through the centuries.... Yet still IT is possible to remember what is true of this mountain, and how venerable the temple remains despite the efforts of modern imposition to steal the imperial thunder! The timeless beauty of the place, and ITs unassailable meaning put ITs electromagnetic radioactive carcinogenic neighbors to shame in comparison....
One of the beautiful experiences of my life, sitting in contemplation and gratitude upon a giant old rock a little ways past the "Danger - no farther" sign out on the easternmost point of Tai Shan's summit.... Alone upon the ancient boulder, with the eastern sky shrouded in clouds and mists lit from behind by the setting sun behind me.... Looking out east towards my homeland, far across the sea, smiling in fond remembrance and thanking the world for my presence here in China.... Thanking the four directions for travels still to come!....
i took out the Taro cards, feeling the time was right to pick one, and as i began to shuffle them, up popped The Fool, which i had apparently put in there backwards after the last time i was meditating upon him....Sticking out so, and so important to my understanding of my self and these journeys, IT seemed perfect, and so i let him sit atop the pile without picking another.... Turning the deck over to glance at the bottom card, there shone The Star, upright and assuring the wisdom and guidance all around! So with The Fool on one side and The Star on the other, i placed the cards back in their bag, and reflected upon the perfection of these moments upon the eastern peak where tomorrow, the sun may shine through on ITs rise above the mountain mists.... while i return to the hanging spot to retire underneath the brilliant full moon....
But as the moon rose over the curling temple rooftops, we found that we had to take just one covert activity before bedtime.... Earlier, we had noticed a walled-off and overgrown staircase leading down a cliffside to a small cave entrance, and wondered what could be down there that could be so off limits? The smallness and inaccessibility of the cave proved too piquant a mystery for us to ignore, and so IT was that we stole under the cover of night down through the underbrush, with only the moon lighting our way....
The suspense was tantalizing as we approached a barred cage door, locking in the darkness inside.... what would we see? We turned on our flashlights, and illuminated a stout mustached and smiling golden deity statue, sitting on a simple square seat amongst trash and construction refuse.... His cell was small, perhaps 5'x5', and locked away behind the bars of the cell door.... His smile seemed quite content with his perpetual imprisonment in his cell of solitary confinement, and we felt fortunate to have an audience, however brief, with the one thing on Tai Shan that no one (to look at the overgrowth over the staircase) was supposed to see.... We silently thanked him and made our way back to the moonlit hammocks to bed down for the night....
- Well, my experience on Tai Shan has left me with one to grow on.... After having been awake most of the night listening to the very loud all-night partying and merry-making of the throngs of overnight visitors, i blearily greeted the morning and ITs beautiful sunrise with a 100.2° fever, gurgling coughloads of loose sputum.... Tiffany pronounced me in no shape to be subjecting myself to the pounding descent down the mountain, and so IT was that my illness forced us to take the combination of cable car and bus down to the base of Tai Shan.... i feel somewhat unfulfilled, understanding that i let myself down on my personal quest to summit and return from the holy mountain on foot; and yet i must understand this experience as a lesson and reminder that improper care and lack of preventative action where my bodily health is concerned will prevent me from fulfilling my intended actions.... so help a brotha out! Take good care and assist the flow of everything as a result! Now, off to Qufu, to recover and muse upon the silent but sage advice the world so freely offers....
This is a very special trip we'll be making tomorrow, up the holiest mountain in the Taoist culture, and the messages i'm getting right now (including jacking up several key muscles in my back trying to maneuver my pack today) are telling me to SLOW DOWN and drop down into this experience.... So that's what i'm going to do.... IT definitely takes more focus to do what i'm here to do while i'm around Tiffany, and i surmise IT probably would be just as distracting no matter who i was around, if i'm not traveling solo; so perhaps this is part of the lesson involved in this part of the journey: How to do what i'm here to do, and focus the way i'm here to focus, no matter WHO i'm around, and no matter WHAT identity they might expect me to have....
A bedtime note to say: Tiffany and i are hanging in the hammocks on the slopes of Tai Shan, very nearly but not quite at the summit, after a very wonderful and intensely-tiring afternoon of ascending up the winding staircases of this place of pilgrimage....
The full moon beams yellow from a clear night-time sky, the river with ITs waterfalls whispers steadily in the distance; the mountainside is calm, and retains a presence about IT that speaks of many thousands of years in which people have shared the best of themselves here, giving what they have to offer in the climb and offering their energy up to be expanded and dispersed by the gods of the mountain, released back into the world as fortune and celebration! A cycle of honor and cooperation, highlighting the tandemic functioning between the terrestrial and the celestial.... a place for men and gods to meet and embrace! IT is an honor for me to climb these stairs upon which so many have trod, and i go to sleep in amongst the sacred forest tonight knowing that i rest in fine company throughout the human continuum.... Many thanks and great gratitude to our collective ancestors, who have watched over all our journeys and helped us all along the way....
Sunrise on Tai Shan!
.... From a hanging spot just off the main drag at the top of Tai Shan:
The Holy Mountain has officially done me in! i haven't felt this done for a looong time; everything in my body is weak and operating at half-speed no matter what i tell IT, my consciousness is beyond presence or clarity, and am hacking up gut-wrenching coughs like an eighty-year old man! i woke up coughing stuff up this morning, and i feel like my whole system is wide-open to the sickness in my lungs right now.... i only hope i don't keep coughing for the next eleven weeks again.... Spring '09 was no fun for those three months....
So yes, my mind is extremely caught up in my body's BS right now, and IT's going to take some time and composure to get back on track, i think.... Tai Shan was truly hard work for me, and i feel very good that i have given this energy to IT; although on the way up, i had to drop down into the "IT's all over" forced-march mindset that only is reservable for last resorts when things just have to be done and there's no way around them.... IT served ITs purpose, and i had as much fun with IT as possible, while enjoying lots of encouragement from many highly amused day-climbers, most of whom seemed incredulous that two foreign folks were lugging heavy camping packs up the mountain.... i must say, this pilgrimage would have been a LOT easier if IT was just me climbing without the pack; as IT is, i'm currently existing somewhere between the realms of the living and the Undead.... And still, i will drag my bones out of the hammock, and go up packless to the temples at the very tippy-tippy-top points, while Tiffany kindly hangs back with the stuff....
IT's taken us two days, maybe eight-ish hours including all the five & ten-minute breaks, to climb to the top of Tai Shan.... i was definitely not in proper camping-climbing shape on this one! IT looks like we'll be spending the night up here tonight, and concluding the trek with the downhill run tomorrow, which will make Tai Shan a three day round-trip.... wow :-o
The temple of the Jade Emperor, the everlasting monarch of heaven, sits on the highest point atop Tai Shan, in attibutes and appearences clearly much as IT has stood these five or six hundred years.... Now paired with a giant antenna overshadowing his majesty, and a quite-modern radar station right next door, the Jade Emperor appears far more quaint than imperial, ensconced in his beautiful temple where he sits unchanging through the centuries.... Yet still IT is possible to remember what is true of this mountain, and how venerable the temple remains despite the efforts of modern imposition to steal the imperial thunder! The timeless beauty of the place, and ITs unassailable meaning put ITs electromagnetic radioactive carcinogenic neighbors to shame in comparison....
One of the beautiful experiences of my life, sitting in contemplation and gratitude upon a giant old rock a little ways past the "Danger - no farther" sign out on the easternmost point of Tai Shan's summit.... Alone upon the ancient boulder, with the eastern sky shrouded in clouds and mists lit from behind by the setting sun behind me.... Looking out east towards my homeland, far across the sea, smiling in fond remembrance and thanking the world for my presence here in China.... Thanking the four directions for travels still to come!....
i took out the Taro cards, feeling the time was right to pick one, and as i began to shuffle them, up popped The Fool, which i had apparently put in there backwards after the last time i was meditating upon him....Sticking out so, and so important to my understanding of my self and these journeys, IT seemed perfect, and so i let him sit atop the pile without picking another.... Turning the deck over to glance at the bottom card, there shone The Star, upright and assuring the wisdom and guidance all around! So with The Fool on one side and The Star on the other, i placed the cards back in their bag, and reflected upon the perfection of these moments upon the eastern peak where tomorrow, the sun may shine through on ITs rise above the mountain mists.... while i return to the hanging spot to retire underneath the brilliant full moon....
But as the moon rose over the curling temple rooftops, we found that we had to take just one covert activity before bedtime.... Earlier, we had noticed a walled-off and overgrown staircase leading down a cliffside to a small cave entrance, and wondered what could be down there that could be so off limits? The smallness and inaccessibility of the cave proved too piquant a mystery for us to ignore, and so IT was that we stole under the cover of night down through the underbrush, with only the moon lighting our way....
The suspense was tantalizing as we approached a barred cage door, locking in the darkness inside.... what would we see? We turned on our flashlights, and illuminated a stout mustached and smiling golden deity statue, sitting on a simple square seat amongst trash and construction refuse.... His cell was small, perhaps 5'x5', and locked away behind the bars of the cell door.... His smile seemed quite content with his perpetual imprisonment in his cell of solitary confinement, and we felt fortunate to have an audience, however brief, with the one thing on Tai Shan that no one (to look at the overgrowth over the staircase) was supposed to see.... We silently thanked him and made our way back to the moonlit hammocks to bed down for the night....
- Well, my experience on Tai Shan has left me with one to grow on.... After having been awake most of the night listening to the very loud all-night partying and merry-making of the throngs of overnight visitors, i blearily greeted the morning and ITs beautiful sunrise with a 100.2° fever, gurgling coughloads of loose sputum.... Tiffany pronounced me in no shape to be subjecting myself to the pounding descent down the mountain, and so IT was that my illness forced us to take the combination of cable car and bus down to the base of Tai Shan.... i feel somewhat unfulfilled, understanding that i let myself down on my personal quest to summit and return from the holy mountain on foot; and yet i must understand this experience as a lesson and reminder that improper care and lack of preventative action where my bodily health is concerned will prevent me from fulfilling my intended actions.... so help a brotha out! Take good care and assist the flow of everything as a result! Now, off to Qufu, to recover and muse upon the silent but sage advice the world so freely offers....
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