Mountain Top Talking

As I stand on the mountain-top, the world looks so small and beautiful; a quiet blue haze. I start on my way down and clumsily dislodge a small rock that clatters and bumps its way down the path ahead of me.

The stillness makes me stop and breathe and admire. There is so much beauty in the quiet and the nothingness. Just brown rugged rocks and smooth blue sky – nothing between us. As I stand I feel

that I am both of these at once – brown and rugged, blue and smooth, like the eagle that flies to the heavens and yet sees the smallest detail on the earth below. I can talk to both Ranginui the Sky Father and Papatuanuku, the Earth Mother, in quiet, intimate conversation – the three of us in one circle. These vast beings on either side, and the tiny me between, have a need to talk. We talk without words and this karanga, or thought, conversation is very intense, more serious than I have ever felt before. These great and powerful beings are sad, very sad, and they want my help. My help! This insignificant speck of humanity! What can I do for these timeless and wonderful beings?

As our karanga conversation begins, Ra, the Giver of All Life, acknowledges and thanks his God with a beautiful orange sunrise and then ascends, bright and yellow, to join us. He, too, is sad and needs my help. This trio of vastness and timelessness need my help and I am overwhelmed.

“Yes, we are large and you are small, Dear One,” says Ranginui, “but we all need each other’s help. It is the size of the giving and not the size of the form that is important.”

Feeling their great sadness, the wairua, the spirit, moves me. I have no thought but to help. My smallness fades and I just am; without size, without dimension. I begin to see my essence and their essence and we are all the same – an essence without time or dimension, an essence of nothing but love.

I wonder what I can do, how I can help, what their sadness is. So many questions.

“I have been trampled on, cleaved and dirtied by a being that has no thought of the pain it causes,” says Papatuanuku. “My parts have been removed from inside, crushed and spread over the rest of me. And that extraction, that crushing and that spreading have unbalanced me, have dirtied me and have caused great pain. Those parts were needed where they were.”

My karanga was of the minerals and the oil in the Earth. Was I right?

“If I took one of your arms and one of your legs off,” she continues, with a sigh, “crushed them and then stuck some of the bits over the rest of your body, you would feel three things, as there are three of us here with you now.”

“Yes,” I think, “I would feel intense pain, I would feel unbalanced and I would feel less effective – less able to fend for myself and less able to help others.”

“Correct, Dear One,” she says, smiling sadly. “I am sick and as this one continues to gnaw at and to destroy me today, I become more sick. I cannot fend for myself and I cannot feed that which does me damage.”

“But why would you want to feed or help someone who hurts you?” I ask, perplexed.

“That is my reason for being, my love,” Papatuanuku says, proudly. “I give unconditionally, with love, to all who are with me. That giving is my sustenance, for giving and loving are a circle, if they are unconditional.”

“This same being that tears at my sister,” says Ranginui, “blankets my being with continuous soot. I am finding it harder and harder to provide Papatuanuku and all her beings with breath.”

This soot, I muse, must be the pollution poured into the air.

“Yes, that soot does deplete my essence. It takes my breath and my strength,” says Ranginui. “But the worst soot does not come from the burning and transforming of Papatuanuku, but from the mind of this destructive being. It has a mind full of fear, of ownership, of divisiveness and of separateness. It thinks that it is “It” and that other beings are “other” and that its space must always get larger and must be protected. It looks down at its possessions and it takes short breaths and so its thoughts of anger and fear go through my being with a shiver and I am weakened. The love and energy I receive from The Source, through Ra, is sent to Papatuanuku for her and her beings. But that love is weakened through the negative thoughts returning from her, and so we all become less.”

“And what is this being you speak of?” I ask. “Is it Man?”

“No,” says Ra, glaring brightly, “It is you,”

“Me?” I ask, frightened. “Little me standing here?”

“Yes, you,” he says firmly.

“But I haven’t polluted or destroyed,” I plead. “Negative people do those things. I try to be loving and gentle and giving.”

“You are people,” says Ra. “You are a person and therefore you are people. There is no separateness. And we are all a part of the all and so we are also people as people are the rocks, the clouds, the burning oil and the poisonous chemicals.”

My chest heaves, my tears stream and the responsibility and emotion become too much. I slump to the ground with my heart bursting and my moans echoing down the valley. After a time, the fingers of Ra, rays of sunlight, caress my forehead and a gentler Ra is heard.

“You are also the love and compassion and the best of all of us, Great One,” he says quietly.

Silence. Nothing. Peace.

I feel the hurt, the anger and also the love and compassion. I also feel nothing, stillness, silence. I am everything and I am nothing. I am the bright unrelenting Ra, the ever changing and changeless Ranginui and the caring, breathing Papatuanuku. I am also the insignificant me on a mountain-top, overwhelmed by it all. What can I do, how can I help, I wonder again.

“Do not do anything,” says Ranginui.

“But how can I make things better,” I ask, with dust-streaked tears on my face. “I want to help.”

“You are helping right now, Great One,” continues Ranginui. “The love and compassion you are expressing right now are healing me. The wairua that moves in you, moves in me and will move through many others.”

“Thank you for that, my sky friend,” I say, “But there must be something else I can do. I must take some action to help us all.”

“No, Dear One,” says Papatuanuku, gently. “Look at us. We do not rush around doing. We just be and we must allow others to be.”

“But surely I can tell everyone what you have told me,” I exclaim.

“No, Dear One,” says Papatuanuku. “You must just be and in that being, grow with greater love each day. For then they will come to you for the words, as you have come to us today. Then you can speak and do. Not with advice but by example and with wisdom. And what is wisdom?”

“Wisdom is knowledge,” I say, knowingly.

“Wisdom = knowledge + humility,” says Ra. “You are no greater or lesser than your pupils or your teachers, as you are no greater or lesser than any of us.”

Their humility is moving, perhaps more moving than their wisdom. I stood, bowed, not knowing what to do or think next.

“Look up, Great One,” says Ra. “Raise your eyes above your feet and your assets and see the glory of us, the glory that is you.”

I do, and feel larger.

“Now breathe,” he says. “Long, slow, deep breaths. For breath is life, is love and the essence of your being. Shallow breathing gives a shallow life on this Earth. Deep breathing gives a deep meaning in this life.”

I breathe as never before. I feel Ranginui in me, and Papatuanuku and Ra. I become all there is; expanded, powerful and humble.

“Now, Dear One,” says Papatuanuku, “you have a journey. Walk down off my shoulder, down to our sister, Tangaroa. There, in her glistening, salty waters, you will meet some friends, the dolphin people. They feel as you do, as we do, the anger, the sadness and the isolation felt by Man, and it burdens them. But they continue to be themselves – playful, loving and positive. They will teach you much. Bathe in Tangaroa and her waters will heal your hurt as will the ethers of Ranginui.”

There seems so much to do.

“The damage and sadness was yesterday,” says Ra, smiling. “I bring in another day now and live in the essence of that. Tomorrow has not yet dawned so stay from that. In every moment there is very little to do.”
I feel lighter, thank them and say goodbye.

“Never goodbye, Great One,” says Ranginui. “We are always with you and you are always with us.”

I smile and skip a few steps.

It is a long walk down off Papatuanuku’s shoulder and as Ra prepares to end another day, I see a village below and stop for a rest. Looking down at the village, I see many people milling around and see that several houses seem to be damaged from a rock-slide.

For some reason I think back to that little rock I had dislodged at sunrise. Surely that hadn’t started a rock-slide and caused so much damage and pain. I feel appalled at my silly action and what I might have done.

“Yes, you could have done that, Dear One,” says Papatuanuku, with a sigh. “And look how powerful you have become.”

I don’t feel powerful at all. I feel like a monster.

“No, Dear One,” she continues, “you are powerful. You see before you families working together to help each other – families that have fought and argued for years. You have damaged their assets and their bodies, but healed their minds.”

I sit and think this over. I cannot bring myself to stand, to walk down and help, much as I want to.

“You have done enough this day,” says Ranginui. “Be content, be still.”

As Ra creeps over the horizon he acknowledges and thanks the day and his God with an orange spectacle – a sunset of great beauty – as he does every day of his existence.

I thank them all, curl up and sleep in the gentle bosom of Papatuanuku.

Glossary of Maori words:
Karanga – Thought
Papatuanuku – Mother Earth
Ra – The sun
Ranginui – The sky
Tangaroa – The sea