Bursting through these dark mountains like the flame
Of lightning through the tempest; thou A lie,
Thy giant brood of pines around thee clinging,
Children of elder time, in whose devotion
The chainless winds still come and ever came
To drink their odors, and their mighty swinging
To hear-an old and solemn harmony;
Thine earthly rainbows stretched across the sweep
Of the aethereal waterfall, whose veil
Robes some unsculptured image; the strange sleep
Which when the voices of the desert fail
…
-Percey Shelley (excerpt from poem, Mont Blanc)
She stands, Sovereign…Inherently voluptuous, conditionally raw. Her masculine counterpart, The stiletto Matterhorn, no more than 80 kilometers away, gazing at her beauty with a longing sense of wonder and desire. Who in their right mind wouldn’t? She is the White Shri Devi, Lady of the Alps – her bosom is the highest mountain in Western Europe. She is the most spectacular feast for any mountain devotee. Mont Blanc is her name.
Next week, La Dame Blanche invites me on a “Soul-O” journey with her, traversing through Switzerland, France and Italy, 9 days immersed in Her glory, with song and dance as my companions. Through steep and rocky scree, over magnificent passes, dipping below mountain spring waterfalls, past soaring aiguilles, through Swiss dairy farms, along massive gourdes and clusters of spired peaks, over balconies of firs, larchwoods, juniper and bilberry, across meadows of breathtaking views, weaving through glacier valleys, and over the Arve river, from which it is said the secret throne springs from the peak of Her Majesty, Mont Blanc. I wait for the secrets to be revealed.
And so, may we meet in the waxing moonlight where stars dance and owls glide. May the sweet soma of the Guru Moon soothe all intensity and pain from the incandescent Summer fires of transformative purification. May the Lover and the Warrior of the steady flame dance to bring all into harmony within your heart. May all that doesn’t serve you at this time be planted in the depth of the new moon mystery. May all that brings you joy, happiness and love be illuminated in the reflective light of the sun on July 15th, Gurupurnima.
To all who Love deeply, I lay this bouquet of white flowers at your lotus feet. Together we greet the White Lady with reverence, humility and receptivity. See you at the end of the trail…
Mont Blanc et gleams on high-the power is there,
The still and solemn power of many sights,
And many sounds, and much of life and death.
the calm darkness of the moonless nights,
In the lone glare of day, the snows descend
Upon that Mountain- none beholds them there,
Nor when the flakes burn in the sinking sun,
Or the star-beams dart through them-Winds contend
Silently there, and heap the snow with breath
Rapid and strong, but silently! Its home
The voiceless lightning in these solitudes
Keeps innocently, and like vapor broods
Over the snow. The secret Strength of things
Which governs thought, and to the infinite dome
Of Heaven is as a law, Inhabits thee!
And what were thou, and earth, and stars, and sea,
if to the human mind’s imaginings
Silence and solitude were vacancy?
In Deep Reverence,
Tiffany
Memoirs of Rhythm 