In many non-western cultures, the mountains are sacred. Westerners flock to Machu Picchu, go on pilgrimage to Mount Kailash, home to Hindu and Buddhist deities. There's Mount Fuji. Nearer to home, our ancestors created their own sacred places, in the form of stone circles, burial chambers, and the like. We can surmise that they too, like the Incas, Bon-pos, and other shamanic cultures, had their sacred spots among the mountains and wild places. Here you are closer to the sun, moon and stars. Here the spirits and deities appear more readily. Here access to the field of universal consciousness and multidimensional realities seems most likely to be granted.
Western mainstream sees things in a different light. A dark emanation from a conspiracy of scientific rationalism, Judeo-Christian (especially Augustinian) worldview, and Cartesian philosophy, it has several basic premises. Firstly, that all things and beings are fundamentally separate one from another. Secondly, that humanity is particularly separate, and irrevocably top of the natural world tree. Thirdly, that the ego subject is the only living reality, and that the world 'out there' is dead and devoid of soul.
A little investigation reveals all these premises to themselves be devoid of reality. Their consequences, however, have been largely disastrous. A set of assumptions which has provided the ideal context for the emergence and consolidation of our modern dominator-style cultures. For them, 'nature' (in itself a curious abstraction from total reality), with its mountains and wild places, is not the least bit sacred. Rather, it is there to be trashed for the dominators own not-very-human ends (primarily money and personal power). My former Buddhist teacher once related a story about walking through a forest with somebody, and remarking on the beauty of the trees. 'Ah yes' came the reply. 'Just think how much wood we can get from them.' Which sums it up nicely.
Certainly in Scotland (I believe a similar mentality exists elsewhere in the UK), the main aim of government seems to be to turn the Highlands into an industrial junkyard, littered with metal-and-plastic wind turbines - which do not save the planet, but simply line the pockets of energy company big boys - and lines of oversized pylons. 'Beauly - Denny' may not mean much to the majority of folk outside the Scottish Highlands, but it is the route for a line of massive pylons, to be built from west of Inverness, through part of the Cairngorms National Park, to end up near Stirling, on the edge of the Central Belt. It is not needed - anyone interested in details should have a peek at the John Muir Trust website for starters - but a dominator complex unspoken agenda deems that it must go ahead.
Incredibly, the dominators do not even seem bothered to keep up a facade of honesty and rationality. On the evening after the Scottish misgovernment announced its expected decision to go ahead with Beauly - Denny, Scottish misgovernment minister Jim Mather appeared on Newsnight Scotland. His performance was pathetic even by the usual abject standards of political conmen and conwomen. What precisely has been given the go-ahead? Could some of the transmission line be put underground? Who could decide about that? What is the process? Where? When? What do you say to the many people who claim that the transmission line is unnecessary, and a waste of money to boot? He was incapable of answering any of the questions; I would have felt embarrassed for him, did I not hold him in such contempt. It was the kind of interview (credit to Gordon Brewer, presenter, for a thorough demolition job) that should leave a person's political career in tatters, but no, it seems things continue as before regardless. The dominators appear to feel less and less need to justify their actions these days, and after all control system dominators are just that: in control through domination.
A final note on the fiasco: it was reported that all five major political parties in the Scottish parliament were in favour of Beauly - Denny anyway. So there was actually no debate to be had in the first place: colluders in the Cartesian fantasy. Funny. 18,000 - or was it 20,000? - people went out of their way to object to the project. In a world where the general rule is simply to just shut up and watch East Enders, that is quite a lot of people. Where is their voice? Oh, I almost forgot. Democracy really is a complete sham, and they don't have a voice. Sorry about that.
Here's a poem from the edge of the Cairngorms:
Carnage at Lynwilg
Even in their flight of death
birds go graceful
funny how the books never tell us
the birds and the beasts
and the rocks and the trees
must all go in beauty
it is their true way
not the one-eye Darwin way
Like an arrow they flew
silent across the morning sky
pheasants in the clearing
till clack-clack-clack
men with guns and gumboots
lined up for the kill
in the grounds of the Scripture Union
shot them down in profusion
On the hill, a woman in pink jacket
hard beating brown November bracken
in the warm morning sun
and out they came flying
dignified in white collars
knowers of the real gods
not like the men in white collars
and the counterfeit gods of the Scripture Union
On I scuttled
uninvited guest at the slaughter
to the mountain beyond
Snow hare, patron of the chill rocks
lord of the thin air, watches above me
and moves on
Across the valley snort grunt
fills the air
Deer stands still, eyes meet mine
Who feels most fear, deer or me?
Who most curious? Who
immersed most in the present?
Returning, they are gone
the big men, the bad men
the tough men, the rough men
with guns and gumboots
Air is still and silent
the forest empty
Till I catch sight of a white-collared one
pheasant escapee
I want to kiss him, offer congraulations
teach him how to survive
how not to fly at the shoot
but that is not his way
I move on, leaves squelch underfoot
a deer gazes into the sunset
Western mainstream sees things in a different light. A dark emanation from a conspiracy of scientific rationalism, Judeo-Christian (especially Augustinian) worldview, and Cartesian philosophy, it has several basic premises. Firstly, that all things and beings are fundamentally separate one from another. Secondly, that humanity is particularly separate, and irrevocably top of the natural world tree. Thirdly, that the ego subject is the only living reality, and that the world 'out there' is dead and devoid of soul.
A little investigation reveals all these premises to themselves be devoid of reality. Their consequences, however, have been largely disastrous. A set of assumptions which has provided the ideal context for the emergence and consolidation of our modern dominator-style cultures. For them, 'nature' (in itself a curious abstraction from total reality), with its mountains and wild places, is not the least bit sacred. Rather, it is there to be trashed for the dominators own not-very-human ends (primarily money and personal power). My former Buddhist teacher once related a story about walking through a forest with somebody, and remarking on the beauty of the trees. 'Ah yes' came the reply. 'Just think how much wood we can get from them.' Which sums it up nicely.
Certainly in Scotland (I believe a similar mentality exists elsewhere in the UK), the main aim of government seems to be to turn the Highlands into an industrial junkyard, littered with metal-and-plastic wind turbines - which do not save the planet, but simply line the pockets of energy company big boys - and lines of oversized pylons. 'Beauly - Denny' may not mean much to the majority of folk outside the Scottish Highlands, but it is the route for a line of massive pylons, to be built from west of Inverness, through part of the Cairngorms National Park, to end up near Stirling, on the edge of the Central Belt. It is not needed - anyone interested in details should have a peek at the John Muir Trust website for starters - but a dominator complex unspoken agenda deems that it must go ahead.
Incredibly, the dominators do not even seem bothered to keep up a facade of honesty and rationality. On the evening after the Scottish misgovernment announced its expected decision to go ahead with Beauly - Denny, Scottish misgovernment minister Jim Mather appeared on Newsnight Scotland. His performance was pathetic even by the usual abject standards of political conmen and conwomen. What precisely has been given the go-ahead? Could some of the transmission line be put underground? Who could decide about that? What is the process? Where? When? What do you say to the many people who claim that the transmission line is unnecessary, and a waste of money to boot? He was incapable of answering any of the questions; I would have felt embarrassed for him, did I not hold him in such contempt. It was the kind of interview (credit to Gordon Brewer, presenter, for a thorough demolition job) that should leave a person's political career in tatters, but no, it seems things continue as before regardless. The dominators appear to feel less and less need to justify their actions these days, and after all control system dominators are just that: in control through domination.
A final note on the fiasco: it was reported that all five major political parties in the Scottish parliament were in favour of Beauly - Denny anyway. So there was actually no debate to be had in the first place: colluders in the Cartesian fantasy. Funny. 18,000 - or was it 20,000? - people went out of their way to object to the project. In a world where the general rule is simply to just shut up and watch East Enders, that is quite a lot of people. Where is their voice? Oh, I almost forgot. Democracy really is a complete sham, and they don't have a voice. Sorry about that.
Here's a poem from the edge of the Cairngorms:
Carnage at Lynwilg
Even in their flight of death
birds go graceful
funny how the books never tell us
the birds and the beasts
and the rocks and the trees
must all go in beauty
it is their true way
not the one-eye Darwin way
Like an arrow they flew
silent across the morning sky
pheasants in the clearing
till clack-clack-clack
men with guns and gumboots
lined up for the kill
in the grounds of the Scripture Union
shot them down in profusion
On the hill, a woman in pink jacket
hard beating brown November bracken
in the warm morning sun
and out they came flying
dignified in white collars
knowers of the real gods
not like the men in white collars
and the counterfeit gods of the Scripture Union
On I scuttled
uninvited guest at the slaughter
to the mountain beyond
Snow hare, patron of the chill rocks
lord of the thin air, watches above me
and moves on
Across the valley snort grunt
fills the air
Deer stands still, eyes meet mine
Who feels most fear, deer or me?
Who most curious? Who
immersed most in the present?
Returning, they are gone
the big men, the bad men
the tough men, the rough men
with guns and gumboots
Air is still and silent
the forest empty
Till I catch sight of a white-collared one
pheasant escapee
I want to kiss him, offer congraulations
teach him how to survive
how not to fly at the shoot
but that is not his way
I move on, leaves squelch underfoot
a deer gazes into the sunset
