Seeing Far

Seeing is an act that connects the viewer with the viewed.  On the physical level, it is an exchange of photons, bouncing off the objects in our world and hitting our retinas in the wavelengths our eyes have evolved to take best advantage of.  On a visceral level, however, seeing is an emotional exchange of information that informs our sense of self-identity.

Seeing far - seeing big, dramatic landscapes, seeing stretches of land that dwarf the human scale - these are, for me,  the most powerful and humbling of human experiences.  I have sought these sights my entire life, or at least for as long as I can remember.  There is something to the distance, something in the sheer quantity, that speaks in a tongue I long to understand.

This view of Paoha and Negit Islands, Mono Lake, taken from the northern slopes of Sagehen Peak yesterday afternoon, creates a powerful sense of belonging in me.  I am made small by this luxuriant expanse.  I am reacquainted with my frail humanness and confronted by my life's transience in the face of this 750,000-year-old landform.  I am nothing more than a fleeting witness to time eternal, a momentary flash across the screen of this cinema.  Yet, without my act of observation (and yours), this Basin becomes meaningless, an infinity that passes silent into some unknown, unknowable eternal future.  The knowledge of this exchange, of this reliance upon each other, in some hidden yet palpable dimension, grounds me in this moment.  It helps me be at home, both in this landscape and within myself.

This was my view yesterday as I "commuted" to town and an evening potluck and music jamm.  I see this same perspective every trip to town (couple times each week), but yesterday's caught my attention like few others.  Why should that be?  Some low clouds, a setting sun, a dusting of snow...what is this thing that stirs inside me in the presence of such moments?  What substance does my witness to this spectacle create?  Awe?  Subservience?  Love?  Are these feelings solid stuff, any less so than the pine trees, rock and ice that direct the sun's particles to my eye?

I fancy it is part a reflection of my Scottish heritage, this yearning for wide open spaces.  (I also fancy my heritage is, in fact, Scottish...something I'd rather take for granted and leave it at that.)  And deeper, perhaps the identification of this living DNA with a genetic ancestry that "feels" familiar in these sweeping spaces, and therefore secure.  What I do know, a certainty I have lived with for my entire adult life, is that I am a being of the mountains, a witness to the power of earth and sky combined on a scale to dwarf my fleeting presence.  With many questions and few answers, I have embarked on a journey of discovery and understanding through a palette of grand landscapes indeed.  Here in the Glass Mountains, I have arrived home at last.

                                               -gmm