Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Vostok - From Lofty Peaks





Vostok

"Far away in the west a spot of lurid crimson still burned in the sky, against which the dark shadows of two lofty peaks could be seen with wonderful distinctness. Nearer, the snow slopes, which we had just left, rose up like phantoms out of the gloom" (William Brown, "Stuc a Chroin's East Face (11th November 1893)," Scottish Mountaineering Journal 3 [1895]: 21)

Note to Thelemites: Aleister Crowley joined the Scottish Mountaineering Club in 1894 and earlier made these ascents in Scotland: August 1890: Beinn Mheadhain (aka Ben Vane - 915m); September 1890: Ben Cruachan (1126m); October 1890: Ben Nevis (1344m); August 1892: Ben Ledi (879m), Ben A’an (461m), Ben Vorlich 985m), Ben More (Crianlarich) (966m), Ben Lawers (1214m), Ben Laiogh, Ben Oss (1029m) and Ben Dubh-Chraige (978m); September 1892: Sgurr nan Gillian (964m), Sgurr a' Ghreadaidh (973), Bruach na Frìthe (958m), Meall a' Chrasgaidh (934m), Am Basteir (934m), Sgurr a' Mhadaidh (918m) and Bloody Stone.



Monday, February 20, 2012

Negura Bunget - Dacia Hiperboreana






"Now I will tell you who it is who is seated on the mountain above the winds and the rain. They are those who, on earth, have neither shame nor honor, nor fear on account of something which might happen. Such folk, says Love, are secure, and so their doors are open, and yet nothing can disturb them, and no work of charity dares to penetrate. Such folk are seated on the mountain, and none other than these are seated there" (Marguerite Porete, Mirror of Simple Souls).


Sub cerul tradiţiei primordiale, Din cetatea Carpaţilor Sub axul boreal, În ţara Geţilor Indefinitul domneşte în stăpîn, Pîn la porţile Daciei. Din nedistinsul polar primordial, cobor Planurile posibilităţii universale Într-al Marii Negre prund Sus îmi ard şi jos îmi pică, Picătura ce pică Face luna tocmai plină... Ţipă sus pe soare Sus pe soare cînd răsare Muntele OM şi Omul Munte, Buricul Pămîntului şi Osia Lumii Cerul, Căliman şi Caraiman Munte şi OM, şi OM precum munte, El e Regele lumii Sub gheţurile hiperboreene Negru, pămîntul Daciei se-ncheagă Din cîmpiile niciodată fără zăpadă Se nasc pămînturi sacre ale nemuririi Prin porţile de fier polare Străvede polul spiritual al lumii, Din munţii Rifei. 

Under the sky of primordial tradition, From the Carpathians fortress Under the boreal axis In the Gets country The undefined rules in the master, To the gates of Dacia. From the undistigush primorial pole, i descend The plans of universal posibilities Into the Black Sea's gravel Up it burn and down it drops, The drop which fall Make the moon just full... It screams up on the Sun Up on the Sun when it rises The Mountain Man and the Man Mountain, The Center of the World and the Axis of the Earth The Sky, Caliman and Caraiman Mountain and Man, Man like a Mountain, He is the King of the World Under the hyperborean ice, Black, the earth of Dacia is cloting, From the never without snow plains The sacred lands of imortality are born From the polar iron gates The spiritual pole of the world can be seen, From the mountains of Rifei.

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Immortal - Mountains of Might



"geology became war or apocalypse; the view from the top of the mountain became a panorama over battlegrounds upon which competing armies of rock, stone and ice had warred for epochs, with incredible slowness and unimaginable force" (Robert Macfarlane, Mountains of the Mind)

Immortal


Lorn - Laments from the Crevasse




"In the bottom of an abyss oppressed with haze--myself in this pit confusing myself with the horror of things, humble and sad crevasse cracking the planet, my presence here is like a cry, without hope, the cry of a blind beast calling a beloved . . . shattered by desire for the ungraspable" (Georges Bataille, Guilty)

Lorn

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Sleep - Holy Mountain




"I saw a great mountain the color of iron, and enthroned on it One of such great glory that it blinded my sight. On each side of him there extended a soft shadow, like a wing of wondrous breadth and length. Before him, at the foot of the mountain, stood an image full of eyes on all sides, in which, because of those eyes, I could discern no human form" (Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias)

Sleep

Horn - Alpenland




"In the height all things are green: on the 'mountain-top' all things are green and new: when they descend into into time they grow pale and fade. . . . All creatures that are in that green and on that height . . . are more pleasing to the soul than anything in this world. As the sun is different from night, so different is the least of creatures, as it is there from the whole world" (Meister Eckhart).

Horn

Friday, February 17, 2012

Schrei aus Stein - Vague as Blown Smoke




"What you have repeatedly experience today in the ascent of this mountain, happens to you, as to many, in the journey toward the blessed life. But this is not so readily perceived by men, since the motions of the body are obvious and external while those of the soul are invisible and hidden" (Petrarch, Ascent of Mt. Ventoux).

Schrei aus Stein


Deafest - Alpine Tundra



" . . . for the Sight of those wild, vast, indigested Heaps of Stones and Earth did so deeply stir my Fancy, that I was not easy till I could give my self some tolerable Account how that Confusion came in Nature" (Thomas Burnet, A Sacred Theory of the Earth).

Deafest


Battle Dagorath - Ruin Upon the Mountainside





"Bursting through these dark mountains like the flame / Of lightning through the tempest" (Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mont Blanc)

Battle Dagorath

Deep Mountains - Mountain Soul





"Once again / Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, / which on a wild secluded scene impress / Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect / The landscape with the quiet of the sky" (William Wordsworth, Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey)

Deep Mountains 

呼之风来兮 阵阵不见
念之云过兮 飘飘凡间
远处山深兮 阴暗连绵
不问归处兮 死去凌乱···


A Cloud in Circle - Among the Loneliness of Mountains



". . . as if these stark, nightmare spires marked the pylons of a frightful gateway into forbidden spheres of dream, and complex gulfs of remote time, space, and ultra-dimensionality" (H. P. Lovecraft, At the Mountains of Madness).

A Cloud in Circle