A pair of ravens perched on rock piles and cawed their amusement at
me. I stumbled around in the fog, seeing the care and devotion in the
taller and larger of the cairns.
YD Bar-Ness is a conservation ecologist based in Fremantle, Western
Australia, on a long-term quest searching for the Kalpavriksh, the
Wish-Fulfilling Tree of ancient Indian myth. He hasn't found it yet,
but will make sure to tell you when he does.
As a scientist, he
specializes in climbing trees to explore the canopy biodiversity, and
as a conservationist, he seeks to use geography and photography to
create environmental education materials.
His writings and photos have
been published or featured in Outlook Traveller, Australian
Geographic, Jetwings, Bootsnall, The Indian Express, Times of India,
GEO-India, Matador Network, and elsewhere. Please visit
www.treeoctopus.net to learn more about his work.
A trekking pole served as a central support, and the meager contents
of my pack were disgorged into this enclosed space. But I could not
bear to wait out the hours inside this claustrophobic space; for all
of the mist, the day was still bright. A pair of ravens perched on rock piles and cawed their amusement at
me. I stumbled around in the fog, seeing the care and devotion in the
taller and larger of the cairns. I visited the god.
Upon a metal archway before the shrine , a series of bells were hung.
Some were hanging from the ringers of the ones above them; I had never seen
this type of compound bell before. A red prayer flag thrust upwards,
jauntily, and on a white wooden sign was written, in large English
letters: LOVE. I rang the bells, distractedly, but the sound sank
forlornly into the vaporous fog.
The afternoon passed lazily, mistily, and slowly. The clouds rolled
in, and with them, my field of view shrank until I was in a small,
chill world of stone cairns, grassy tufts. Soon, I was curled up in my
tent, breathing the thin air slowly.
In the middle of the night, the first night of autumn, I awoke
suddenly. The inky mists no longer dampened the sounds of the
mountains - I could hear the insistent patter of heavy raindrops on
the tent, and the consistent hammer of blowing winds. An energy filled the air. A bright light illuminated my nighttime
existence. My thoughts of planetary equinoxes, lunar companions, and
sacred mountains furiously danced in a circle around some divine
understanding - and then they scattered, irrevocably, as the first
thunderbolt screamed out in exultant pain.
I was on the very summit of a mountain, in a wet tent, curled up
around a metal rod reaching to the sky. After an entire monsoon summer spent watching the lightning- bijlee--
from the hillsides, leaping on the plains below, I had supposed I was
literally above such dangers. But now I was inside the cumulonimbus
cloud, and my life was truly at risk.
Moments later, I had shivered into my rain gear, laced my boots,
packed away my sleeping gear, and pushed over the trekking pole. The
origami tent had to be untied from the rocks anchoring it, and
refolded. Lightning splashed. Retreating, I looked for the path from the mountaintop. By torchlight
and sky-flash, I hurried down the trail, passing by the archway of
LOVE. I rang the bells, unheard in the rain-flecked wind, and got off
the summit with as much quickness as the dark would allow.
The rain was unrelenting; and the tundra grassfields were slickly
transformed into shining mud. The dirt path below the cliffs was
mercifully sound under foot, and it was not long before I was at Tungnath
temple.
Following the stairs down past the gate, I approached the first of the
small hotels. With sharp knocks and a pleading holler, I was
readmitted in to the warmth and safety of the candlelit indoors of the
human world.
Before sunrise, I returned to the mountain. The clouds had drifted
farther along, and there was now starlight and the narrow sickle the
moon whispering down on the icy peaks. The snowfields held tight to
the dark ridges of rock, and fantastic basins and valleys bowed down
below the sparkling summits.
A golden flowering of eastern light in the clouds hanging distant
painted my first glance at the uppermost lines of this highest of
mountain ranges.
I staggered over to the archway painted LOVE. As the sun rose, the
shadow of Chandrashila lay in a flat triangle laid down over the
tortured terrain below. The green world of life gave way to the ice
world here, and the ice world tried to touch the distant sky. Moon sliver, sunrise, shadow and rain; driftcloud and snow-peak,
thunder and starlight; windshine and lightning. I rang the bells, and
this time, the crystal note rang out across the horizon.
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