The Sword of Damocles versus Ghosts of the Mountain....
We know that mountains have long been deified by us humans and high places sanctified since they are closest to heaven we ever got until we figured out flight, at least. Mountains figure largely in all the colorful metaphors of facing obstacles - our big human struggle to climb them, get over them, etc. Mountains are the places our holy people go up an receive instructions from God. Mountains are places where miraculous encounters between the son of God and his angels occur. Mountains play a big role in our fairy tales and mythologies. And the Leutasch Mountain framing the south west corner of Mitten Wald, in the Southern Bavarian Alps is no exception. The story of the spirit of the mountain here is well embraced and played up nicely in the tourist information signs at the base of the hiking path up. And beside, in a field of grass, statues constructed of sticks and hay with human clothes on them, looking for all the world like chubby scarecrows gone mystical, stand, over-guarding the clear water and hungry fish in the base pool of the mountain's cavernous, ravine-carving waterfall. Christ on the cross and the two robbers on each side also feature in the same field, a paradox that has run its full course and around again, and thus in these days and times, becomes an excuse for a quick brush off or a muse's chuckle to many us who come to climb and get our dulled and muted senses going with another quaint myth of mountains and spirits that rule over them. To other more orthodox and conservative climbers, the catholic icons in field may well be welcomed as a deterrent to the animistic mountain spirit celebrated by the mystic scarecrows in the same field. As it is, both are represented there.
The day before we climbed, during a Skype talk with my wife and my son's mom, he was showing her his new pocketknife which he opened, then it slipped out of his hand and the open blade, of course, struck him on the top of the foot. The sharpness of the new blade proved its effectiveness in chopping the deepest and cleanest bone revealing, one-centimeter laceration I had seen in a while. We should have gone for stitches, probably but me being dad first thought, I probably don't have the insurance I need in this country on holiday to cover this". Therefore I reasoned further, a one centimeter laceration is still "ok enough" to tightly pull two "Nex-care" fabric band-aids across the wound, thus pinching it shut, as would the stitches in same manner, do....
The next morning I assessed the situation by asking son how his foot was doing. Was he okay to hike up the Leutaschklamm? Yep. Any pain? Nope. So we were good to go then? Yep. As it turned out the one centimeter laceration became the focus of every step soon after and yet, with my gentle father-like coaxing, we made it more than half way up before the spirit of the mountain decided for us that we weren't going any further up that day. Now I have a nickname for my son's knife - Damocles Sword.
In this case however the sword ACTUALLY dropped instead of remaining hanging by the single horse hair that Dionysius had rigged above Damocles head to convey the sense of the constant fear in which a great man lives - this is how the great men live, you see. And Damocles, who, envying the good life of "a man with great power and authority", in trading places for one day, lost all that sense of envy and his appetite for feasting when looking up, he saw the sword by horse-hair dangling thus.
No great power nor authority is needed to hike up a mountain path and yet it seemed that day to me that despite my not having revealed to anyone, any possibility of even a thread of envy for that kind of a position, the mountain spirit had mischievously already the day before any realization on my part or anyone's cut the horse horsehair and disturbed the sword edge's aim, probably meant for me, and the knife fell on my son's foot. Nice going, Geist....
And ya, ok, lesson learned. I will not be envious again of any of those in positions of great power and authority. Didn't have to drag my son into it though.
Know this, however, Geist of the mountain. Christ on the cross, the Redeemer, the other statue, the icon, residing there in the self same field as you share and maybe think you can claim and take the place of for a day, to have power and authority over all, spirit of the mountain, to you I say: "look up!".
Forgive me for my deep delve into metaphysical sounding dialogue and description - far be it from me, mortal in body, however when it comes to the attempted harming of any appendage of any close to me, I shall become involved.
Anyhoo, despite the meta-physicality surrounding those few hours, we made it more than up half way up the spirit's mountain, my temporarily hobbled boy and I and I for one left that place not too disappointed for failing to go all the way up, thinking of dangling swords, already fallen swords, mischievous mountain spirits, and I had at my side a much more cheerful son with a foot that felt a lot more fine on the way down than on the way up - almost miraculously so....
So it is with some spirits, with power and authority, and the mischievous ones who envy and attempt to usurp it, cutting horse hairs prematurely, and disturbing aim and wounding all the wrong people in all the wrong places at all the wrong times.
Likely I will never get back to climb the leutasch Mountain but I need to say good things about it so that you are not scared off. Go there without envy (or any other vice) in your heart, don't let your children buy knives the day before, I would say, and you should be fine. Smiley face....
The day before we climbed, during a Skype talk with my wife and my son's mom, he was showing her his new pocketknife which he opened, then it slipped out of his hand and the open blade, of course, struck him on the top of the foot. The sharpness of the new blade proved its effectiveness in chopping the deepest and cleanest bone revealing, one-centimeter laceration I had seen in a while. We should have gone for stitches, probably but me being dad first thought, I probably don't have the insurance I need in this country on holiday to cover this". Therefore I reasoned further, a one centimeter laceration is still "ok enough" to tightly pull two "Nex-care" fabric band-aids across the wound, thus pinching it shut, as would the stitches in same manner, do....
The next morning I assessed the situation by asking son how his foot was doing. Was he okay to hike up the Leutaschklamm? Yep. Any pain? Nope. So we were good to go then? Yep. As it turned out the one centimeter laceration became the focus of every step soon after and yet, with my gentle father-like coaxing, we made it more than half way up before the spirit of the mountain decided for us that we weren't going any further up that day. Now I have a nickname for my son's knife - Damocles Sword.
In this case however the sword ACTUALLY dropped instead of remaining hanging by the single horse hair that Dionysius had rigged above Damocles head to convey the sense of the constant fear in which a great man lives - this is how the great men live, you see. And Damocles, who, envying the good life of "a man with great power and authority", in trading places for one day, lost all that sense of envy and his appetite for feasting when looking up, he saw the sword by horse-hair dangling thus.
No great power nor authority is needed to hike up a mountain path and yet it seemed that day to me that despite my not having revealed to anyone, any possibility of even a thread of envy for that kind of a position, the mountain spirit had mischievously already the day before any realization on my part or anyone's cut the horse horsehair and disturbed the sword edge's aim, probably meant for me, and the knife fell on my son's foot. Nice going, Geist....
And ya, ok, lesson learned. I will not be envious again of any of those in positions of great power and authority. Didn't have to drag my son into it though.
Know this, however, Geist of the mountain. Christ on the cross, the Redeemer, the other statue, the icon, residing there in the self same field as you share and maybe think you can claim and take the place of for a day, to have power and authority over all, spirit of the mountain, to you I say: "look up!".
Forgive me for my deep delve into metaphysical sounding dialogue and description - far be it from me, mortal in body, however when it comes to the attempted harming of any appendage of any close to me, I shall become involved.
Anyhoo, despite the meta-physicality surrounding those few hours, we made it more than up half way up the spirit's mountain, my temporarily hobbled boy and I and I for one left that place not too disappointed for failing to go all the way up, thinking of dangling swords, already fallen swords, mischievous mountain spirits, and I had at my side a much more cheerful son with a foot that felt a lot more fine on the way down than on the way up - almost miraculously so....
So it is with some spirits, with power and authority, and the mischievous ones who envy and attempt to usurp it, cutting horse hairs prematurely, and disturbing aim and wounding all the wrong people in all the wrong places at all the wrong times.
Likely I will never get back to climb the leutasch Mountain but I need to say good things about it so that you are not scared off. Go there without envy (or any other vice) in your heart, don't let your children buy knives the day before, I would say, and you should be fine. Smiley face....
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