Monday, December 16, 2013

Halmos - To Climb the Mount



Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Eismond




Album information at Honour and Darkness

the tarns are frozen
and the summit is beyond all sight
ascendance through the clouds
the mountain awaits
all i once knew is now lost
all i once had is now gone
my memories are now forgotten
only a mountain of sorrow remains
-- "The Gilded Mountain"




Ancient Remembrances


Monday, December 2, 2013

Battle Dagorath -- Interdimensional Passageway Between Worlds


"The temple of this spirit is the primordial majesty of the peak, the glaciers, the crevasses, and the boundless blue sky. In this context the mountainous peaks and the spiritual peaks converge in one simple and yet powerful reality" (Evola, "The Mountain and Spirituality")

Battle Dagorath

Thursday, March 28, 2013

Wayfarer - Toward Mountains







Monday, March 18, 2013

Stormcrow - Kingdom of Vertical


Stormcrow
Stormcrow on Piz Julier 3380m
"In the track 'Kingdom of Vertical', the image of the mountain is almost analyzed in an architectural way, and the power of its phenomena redirects into music with a deafening and unstoppable impetus, until it's clarified that the closeness of this ban to the world of mountains and mountaineering is anything but purely and simply coincidental . . . It's during this journey, and in alpine wanderings, that the Stormcrow soul and music has been forged and shaped, become powerful as hundreds of rockfalls, penetrating as the sinister creak of an ice sheet, melancholic as a horn that resounds calling from the lonely summit, waiting to be replied" (http://www.stormcrow.it/bio/)

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Bathory - To Enter Your Mountain



Bathory

Blind fools who see only what they tell you to
Open up your eyes you might see it too
See there is a lot to see within you too
Don't be like the rest and let them take it from you

Dumb fools who say only what they tell you to
Speak up and find that there is more truth within you than you knew
Somewhere someday you will stand before it too

Trust me there is a never ending mountainside to climb for you too
To enter your mountain
Go into your mountainside
To enter one's mountainside
Will take its man

Who enters his mountain
With or without sword in hand
Who enters his mountainside
He will learn
Deaf fools who hear only what they tell you to
Open up your ears you might hear it too
Listen there is a wild storm within you too
Burst out use its powers don't be a...

Damn fool how can you follow paths not made by nor for you
The only way you will ever need to walk is right there for you
Somewhere someday you will stand before it too
Trust me there is a never ending mountainside to climb for you too

To enter your mountain
Go into your mountainside
To enter one's mountainside
Will take its man

Who enters his mountain
With or without sword in hand
Who enters his mountainside
He will learn

[He who enter...]
He who enters his mountain
He who enters his mountain
He who enters his mountain
He who enters his mountain
[He who enters his mountain
He who enters his mountain
He who enters his mountain
Into one's mountainside]

"[T]he high mountain . . . belongs neither to this world nor to the one beyond it" (Ernst Bloch)

"I love those who do not first seek behind the stars for a reason to go under and be a sacrifice, but who sacrifice themselves for the earth, that the earth may some day become the overman's" (Nietzsche)

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Brown Mountain, or, the Ulyssean Failure of Manifest Destiny


Brown Mountain

"Et nunc apparuit illi quidam mons tante altitudinis, quante nunquam in nostro mundo habitabili circunspexit. Ideo ait Ulixes in textu:

quando ci apparve una montagna, bruna
per la distantia, et parvem'alta tanto
quanto veduta non ave' alcuna.

Que autem terra sit ista quam a longe in plaga meridiana vidit Ulixes non bene sciri potest, quia de illa terra nulla vera ystoria reperitur; tum quia nullus unquam de illis partibus ad nos venit, nec de nobis unquam illuc ivit qui ad nos postea sit reversus. Tamen beatus Ysidorus dicit, XIIIIo libro Eth., quod extra tres partes orbis, Asiam scilicet, Affricam et Europam, quarta pars transocceanum interior est in meridie, que propter solis ardorem incognita nobis est, in cuius finibus anthipodas fabulose inhabitare produntur. Anthipode autem dicuntur homines qui subter nos habitare fabulose finguntur, qui tenent plantas contrarias nostris plantis." (Guido da Pisa (1327-28[?]), Inferno 26.133-135]

"Cinque volte si era illuminato (racceso) ed altrettante (tante) spento (casso) l'emisfero visibile (lo lume... di sotto) della (da la) luna, da quando (poi che) eravamo entrati ('ntrati) nella difficile impresa (ne l'alto passo), quando ci (n[e]) apparve una montagna, scura (bruna) a causa della (per la) distanza, e mi parve (parvemi) così (tanto) alta quanto non ne avevo (avëa) veduta nessuna (alcuna). – L'alto passo (che è anche il viaggio di Dante, il quale però usufruisce dell'ausilio divino: cfr. Inf. II.12; si tenga presente l'occorrenza di passo a Inf. I.26, in rima con basso) sta per giungere all'epilogo. Dopo un viaggio durato cinque lunazioni (l'emisfero inferiore della luna, quello visibile dalla terra, si era per cinque volte racceso e cinque casso: cfr. Aen. II.85), quasi cinque mesi, appare un'altissima montagna (cfr. Purg. III.14-15; IV.40), ancora bruna, cioè indistinta, dai contorni vaghi (cfr. Aen. III.522). È la montagna alla cui sommità si trova il Paradiso Terrestre (essa diverrà dopo l'Avvento la sede del Purgatorio), l'accesso al quale è vietato agli uomini dopo il peccato originale (Gen. 3.24; Purg. I.130-132). Secondo una leggenda di origine araba, in mezzo all'Oceano sorgeva un monte, sede del Paradiso. Ulisse, che con un atto di superbia ha oltrepassato i limiti dall'alto stabiliti, non può proseguire oltre; come subito si vedrà, egli sarà punito dall'intervento divino. ”Il viaggio non si svolge sotto la luce radiante del sole, simbolo della grazia divina, ma all'ombra della luna, simbolo della ragione umana non illuminata dalla grazia“ (A.A. Iannucci, Forma ed evento nella 'Divina Commedia', Roma, Bulzoni, 1984, pp. 163-64). Ulisse – accusa Aiace (cfr. n. 139-142) – compie le sue imprese con la complicità della notte (Metam. XIII.15), non fa nulla alla luce del sole (Ivi XIII.100). La presenza del numero ”cinque“ non è forse casuale, dato che si tratta del numero dei sensi, del mondo terreno. Comunque va notato che il tragitto della nave di Ulisse è lo stesso del lieve legno che trasporta le anime alla spiaggia del Purgatorio: le anime, ovviamente, sono prive di corpo, ma soprattutto contrite e perdonate da Dio." (Nicola Fosca (2003-2006), Inferno 26.130-135)




Friday, January 11, 2013

Young and In the Way - I Am Not What I Am

I Am Not What I Am (2011) cover art


"I stand in awe of my body, this matter to which I am bound has become so strange to me. I fear not spirits, ghosts, of which I am one,—that my body might,—but I fear bodies, I tremble to meet them. What is this Titan that has possession of me? Talk of mysteries!—Think of our life in nature,—daily to be shown matter, to come in contact with it,—rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks! the solid earth! the actual world! the common sense! Contact! Contact! Who are we? where are we?" (Thoreau, "deep within the hostile ranks of clouds" on Mt. Katahdin)

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Falls of Rauros . . . Tol Brandir


Falls of Rauros

"'Behold Tol Brandir!' said Aragorn, pointing south to the tall peak. 'Upon the left stands Amon Lhaw, and upon the right in Amon Hen the Hills of Hearing and of Sight. In the days of the great kings there were high seats upon them, and watch was kept there. But it is said that no foot of man or beast has ever been set upon Tol Brandir. Ere the shade of night falls we shall come to them. I hear the endless voice of Rauros calling' . . . The day came like fire and smoke. Low in the East there were black bars of cloud like the fumes of a great burning. The rising sun lit them from beneath with flames of murky red; but soon it climbed above them into a clearly sky. The summit of Tol Brandir was tipped with gold. Frodo looked out eastward and gazed at the tall island. Its sides sprang sheer out of the running water. High up above the tall cliffs were steep slopes upon which trees climbed, mounting one head above another; and above them again were grey faces of inaccessible rock, crowned by a great spire of stone. Many birds were circling about it, but no sign of living things could be seen" (J.R.R.  Tolkien, Fellowship of the Ring).



Thence up he flew, and on the Tree of Life,
The middle Tree and highest there that grew,
Sat like a Cormorant; yet not true Life
Thereby regain'd, but sat devising Death
To them who liv'd
(Milton, Paradise Lost, IV.194-7)

"But the cormorant and the bittern shall possess it; the owl also and the raven shall dwell in it: and he shall stretch out upon it the line of confusion, and the stones of emptiness" (Isaiah 34:11)