I have visited this mountain many times in all seasons. I will try to learn its indigenous name. Its steep slopes, rocks, trees, flowers and trails draw me like a magnet. I sense that its granite clarity unfurls a benign energy over the surrounding country. I wonder how many other people, now and in earlier times, have felt the same, and what ceremonies or meditations in addition to mine have been done in this high clear air. Some time ago I read about meeting a crystal friend in Learning Cherokee Ways by Venerable Dhyani Ywahoo. Occasionally since then I have thought about crystals, though with very few ideas of what such friendship would be like. In recent years this mountain, of all the places I love, has felt like the most likely place for a meeting.
I drive carefully on the mountain road. The year’s first snow has left some patches of slushy ice. I’ve been thinking all summer and fall about this trip, glad I finally got here just before the road is closed for the season. I notice myself passing a junction and a trailhead I thought might be calling me today. A thought vision appears that maybe the crystal friend would be in two pieces that fit together like a friendship brooch, to be sent their different ways but some day to re-unite, click back together as one. Just a little farther to go.
A parked car blocks the opening in the roadside bushes I had felt would be my gateway. Fortunately the road is wide enough for me to stop on the opposite side. But then the young fellow in the other car makes hand signals would I like him to move? I motion acceptance of his offer and pull into just the right place.
It is a fabulous afternoon on the mountain. Crisp breezy air, clouds forming and dissolving in blue sky, sun over the peak. Forgetting something important in my joy at being up here, I shoulder my little pack and head out along the familiar path. Soon the slope above me opens up in levels of granite surfaces and the packed sand that weather makes of the crumbly rock. In the nooks and cracks are tough woody plants that will bloom red orange purple blue again next spring. Penstemon, paint brush, scarlet gilia. Thinking of crystals among broken lines of rocks poking through the sand, I climb. It is steep but open at first, not much snow, easy up.
Minding my footing, my eyes fall upon occasional individual stones, mostly with mica and quartz bits embedded, glinting in the sun. “Are you the one?” I ask as I pick them up. Again and again I hear something like “I am your friend, but not the particular one you are here to meet.” I thank them and put them down. Some I leave in places where I can check them again if I come back down this way.
Into the brush. Thick entwined stands of silvery bare bark chokecherry. Buck brush still carrying leathery green leaves. Gratitude for today’s measure of agility and strength to thread the tough way up. I aim for a black snag against the sky. Clutching strong twigs I pause to pant for a minute. Bright white cloud swirls behind the snag’s branches, breaking sunlight into blazing prism colors. Before I can fish the camera out of my pack, the light returns to blue and white. I feel lifted onward and upward to a rock I can sit on for tea and rest.
Studying the rock family around me, opening thermos and snack, memory pops up what I’d forgotten as I hit the trail: Offering. Offering my effort, this outing and my intention to the mountain, crystal friend, sacred Gaia, ancestors, the Holy Ones, all beings. My shoulders settle, I breathe. Not just me offering to them, but a vast and interconnected field of offering. So I correct the omission, say words of dedication and vow, pour a little tea on the earth, gently toss bits of chocolate and cheese. I ask myself “Why exactly am I looking for a crystal friend?” The question turns and I ask the rock, “What would you, friend, like from me?” Opening my mind to possible answers, I pick up a small dense angular stone. “Is it you?” “No, but I will guide you there.” Holding this rock in my right hand, I traverse a steep slope, digging the edges of my boots into sand, checking the spinal ridges of rocks as I step over them. I notice more and larger flakes of mica as I proceed, which encourages me.
Frequently spaces open up in the stream of thoughts, steps, and balancing sweeps of arms and legs. These settling moments help me drop the default mode of looking, searching, thinking, calculating the most likely terrain. Practice opening the heart to resonance with mountain, sky, crystal friend. Refresh the intention that all this will benefit all beings in whatever unknown ways might arise. Rather than trying to summon the friend, open awareness to it guiding my feet. Reduce dependence on the scanning eyes, rely more on subtle signals in body and surroundings. And give up the preconceived idea of a magnificent clear large and perfect crystal. All the quartz I have seen here is small and smoky, embedded in rough rocks, or it is opaque milky white or a lovely pale orange.
Perspective continues to widen: Immersion in gratitude for mountain, being here, following this pathless path, and the interpenetrating luminosity of it all. Heart resonance also with crystal teacher Venerable Dhyani, with deep sky, stars, the profoundly precious blessings of all keepers and teachers of wisdom through time, space, realms. Offering intermittently steady mantras in the thin air. One is for the sacred feminine emptiness wisdom energy of Mother Earth, strongly linked in my mind to a particular vibrant landscape just a few ridges north of here. Another is for the pure clear crystalline flow of relational being: crystal, human, everyone.
Decision point: Steep brush tangle below, towering dome of rock above. Sun gone behind the mountain, need to get on down in the light. No cause for worry yet, but be mindful. Open, relax, invite awareness. Hold the guide rock firmly, lightly. Look down, look up. There is open ground between here and the high rock face, leading to a possible way down. Tired body can rise, it’s not that much of a climb, and there is a pulling.
Up we go. It doesn’t take long. Rocks are strewn at cliff’s base, some half buried in the decomposed granite sand. An angular black and white one, two hands wide, moss in its cracks, calls my attention. I kneel and reach out to it. “Are you the one?” “No, but it is an associate, nearby, just there.” Up and to the left I see it. Smaller, white crystalline crown, dark base, black streak vertically through it. No doubt about it. Joyful I bow, carefully lift it from the ground with both hands. It falls apart in two pieces, which then precisely fit back together, confirming the earlier vision. Jubilation and thanks.
I place apple, chocolate and cheese and pour tea for the rock, mountain, all beings. Carefully wrap the friend in a soft sweater and tuck into the backpack. Grin at the rock’s sense of humor: It looks quite like a tooth, a broken tooth at that, and I have a major dentist appointment tomorrow. Blessed and energized I head straight down. It’s steep, but I feel no worry. Heels dig into sand until the thicket. Stop, breathe, request blessings of strength and balance.
Step, respectfully and with mantra for tree life, through, on, over, around tough chokecherry limbs. Then into the buck brush. Easier going with its smaller shorter branches, mostly bending down the hill from years of snow. Soon a deer trail leads down around another huge boulder to explore next year. The trail back to the car lies just below. A gliding walk, joy, relief and gratitude in every step.
Sister Nyima the sun sinks into the far horizon as I drive home. I wash the friend, wrap it in cloth, place it on the shrine surrounded by other rocks, sticks, images of Holy Ones, guide rock at its side. Leave it there in reverence until I learn more from Venerable. Wondering how the story of friendship will unfold further.
A crisp and subtle learning so far about letting ideas and efforts go in favor of uncontrived open mind. How a kind of spreading out singular self-referencing into a broader context expands perception, understanding, comfort, confidence in the whole luminous constellation of connections: rock, human, stars, mind, beings.
Michael Jones Rocky Mountains Turtle Island November 2021