Holy Mountain

My woodland home sat in a deeply wooded valley at the feet of Carn Ingli Mountain on the North Pembrokeshire coast. The Welsh name Carn Ingli translates into English as Mountain of Angels, and the mountain is considered by some to be an ancient place of pilgrimage and sacredness. I would often walk her higher slopes, losing myself in her deep-time presence, letting my senses unravel and expand into wild mystery. This poem attempts to speak some of that experience.

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Her weathered skin beneath my soft bare feet.
Her laughing waters cool and still
In the cracked cup of my hands.

Her voice, as supple and varied as the wind,
Whispers feathered songs
And lichened tales
Into to my singing heart,

Drawing me out into a space beyond words,
Beyond meaning.

Crouched beside a mossy pool,
Or dancing under ragged clouds,
I’m a falling leaf
Loosened by her gravity.

Wild amidst the timeless,
Her stillness calls me home

To a place where I want only to forget,
Only to remember,

Only to love without limits
That which feeds the pulsing breath of life.

So I lay myself gently down upon the mountainside,
Listening
With my whole body
For the roots of her.

Within the bluestones, silence.
Within the silence, moonlight.

So it begins.

Awakening into the mountain’s dream
My bones become broken stones,
My flesh becomes moss,
My eyes become ravens,
My mind - the sky.

Kindling with a hidden fire
My subtle body burns and flares,

Ecstasy rising like smoke

And prayer.

The world of things dissolves,
And with it all gravity, all causation.

Flying now
Without wings;
Falling
Without end;
Like music,
Having neither inside nor outside.

Dancing without moving,
My heart becomes an explosion of light.

At its centre I disappear.

Where I end begins the mystery:

Closer than breath,
Closer than mind and thought,

Here before the beginning
Of both day and night.

Where I end begins the mountain,

These words just mountain mist
Gathering in the constant dawn.