Mountain Waves
What a beautiful Imbolc surprise to watch huge waves breaking and tubing over the Karavanken Mountains. No word of a lie and no exaggeration that these waves were over 600 meters high. It is like a prayer was being answered because I have been missing the ocean and I am being treated to the sky ocean breaking in huge tubing waves.
Clouds build up, climbing on the east wind from the southern side of the mountain range in Slovenia and flowing, falling in ease over into the “Rosental valley” of Austria like a waterfall; turning west and east you can see in the misty distant areas rivers and fingers of clouds, falling over the escarpment like a fast and vast river of dragon horses galloping down the steep mountain side skidding over the pine covered slopes, and then becoming dissolved by the rising westerly breeze lifting them aloft and they disappear into thin air.
This evenings spectacular show happens because the westerly breeze is strong and building into a pulsing wind. The ariel gods are meeting, invisible to my eyes near the high ridge where an outcrop of dark fir covered butt massive and dark, juts out north hanging over the vale below. The rising wind hitting the descending fingers of clouds scattering and pushing them upwards, there they are falling back on themselves and becoming a looping upside down, perfect hollow wave, forming the beautiful curves of a tube, rolling tentacles, thin and wispy make visible the unseen clash of opposite forces.
We watch, slowly eating our supper, then quietly we notice that there is a rhythm, just like the waves on the ocean. As a wave rider in my youth, I know the way of waves. I remember well, sitting on my surf board waiting for a set, salty eyes blinking at the horizon, searching for the signs of a dark twisting, a long away rippling movement of big waves moving in fast. About every five minutes a set would come in, from a flat glassy sea, building from small waves, getting bigger and bigger; of the seven waves it will be the last two, six and seven that I am getting into position for, they are the ones with power, speed and size. Here in the sky is the same scenario, there is a rhythm, a pattern of waves coming in sets. The first ones are lacking the power to break the downward thrusting wind. But coming up, speeding behind from over the turquoise lake of the Faakersee an unseen force is building. Grown strong and flying southward this cold north wind finally strikes the descending clouds; in meeting the rising westerly breeze builds in force, bursts up, lifting the misty grey, bending it back on itself, curving and tubing the clouds, stretching them over, scattering and wrestling the power like a driving turbine.
This rhythm reminded me of so many rhythms and cycles found in the functioning of my body; the cranio-sacral pulse, a natural hydraulic pulse within the dural membranes and all connective tissues of the human body. The breath of the lungs coming in and flowing out, we are being breathed all day and every day, we are being breathed by life. This is what the mountain waves are showing me. That the mountains are breathing, they are being breathed like I am being breathed. It looks silent from here, those clouds lifting and falling, rolling and dissolving, yet there is a sound in the wind, all rhythms have sound, the question is can I hear it? What does it take to hear the sound of the mountains breathing?
I have been sitting outside with my holy thorn harp playing and looking at the mountain, seeing if, and listening to see whether I can catch the mountains song in the air around me. I can become one with the mountains I see rising high on my horizon, they look at me as I look at them; I can invite them into my effort to have a relationship. Sound can be so intimate as a way of projecting love and intention. I not only see what is outside with my eyes, I also send out from inside of me my reality of inner light, I project my vision forward from me to the mountain. This I can do with all of my senses. I can send the beautiful inner sound that I can hear, the sound of my soul, I can send this sound out towards the mountain knowing that it has life as I have life, it’s trees, rocks, streams, and waterfalls can sense my intent and the music I play, this is the mountains music. “In the beginning was the word” what an apt phrase for us sound healers. The holy word is our sound, that is our life inside; and outside all around there is a mirror, reflecting it back to us. Listen, just listen.
