Mountain Moving Day
This is not the time to quit. To fall back asleep. The sun has already made up its mind to rise. And we are asked to rise with it.
Narrated by Demian Yumei
This is a new essay inspired by the first version published on my old blog, KeepingTheDream.com, in 2012.
Mountain Moving Day
~ Yosano Akiko, 19111
“Mountain Moving Day has come.”
is what I say. But no one believes it.
Mountains were just sleeping for a while.
Earlier they had moved with fire.
But you do not have to believe it.
O people! You’d better believe it!
All the sleeping women move
Now that they awaken.
From Hamil and Gibson, River of Stars: the Selected Poems of Yosano Akiko
“‘Mountain Moving day has come’ is what I say. But no one believes it.”
The dreamer, the visionary sometimes stands alone. Our words are met with blank stares, our passion returns empty handed.
But oppression is designed to separate us from one another. To cut us off from one another, from humanity, even within our own selves.
But if you listen, carefully… you may hear what sounds like an echo is the voice of another heart answering, recognizing the message in your words as its own longing.
“Mountains were just sleeping for a while. Earlier they had moved with fire.”
There is a knowing, a burning creative power that runs through us the like the visions and the dreams we have, stirring beneath the conscious mind.
It speaks of heritage and roots, our connection to a primal past, the nature of things before culture and hierarchical systems force-molded our lives into useful service to those at the top of that hierarchy.
At the foot of the mountain or at a distance, the surface appears calm and still but storms rage at the top and whisper of what lies beneath.
I want to feel that fire. I want to reclaim my heritage, my birthright from the secret DNA of rock and tree.
“But you do not have to believe it.”
Does lava flow through my veins? Are there sacred stories hidden in deep caves or a place where roots intermingle with the part of me that reaches for the sun?
Do any of these require our permission or do they exist without our agreement? We have only to decide whether we are willing to reconnect with the truth of our being.
Can molten rock be directed with intention, through channels of rage and channels of mercy to protect the earth, the forests, the oceans, the rivers and air from blind greed and gluttonous avarice?
Are we helpless like we feel or have come to believe we are — another lie upon lie we’ve been fed?
Can we hear the cry of 800-year-old Sequoias felled by the logger’s ax, the wild grasslands mourning the loss of bison yet again, or bees dying in our own backyard?
Will we answer them? 2
And what will the answer be?
We are no stranger to getting burned but we are, also, no stranger to rising again.
Can we rise high enough, fast enough?
“O people! You’d better believe it!”
Yes, we better! We can rise high enough and fast enough because we have to. Because we move at the speed of, not urgency, as much as love, at the speed of caring and compassion, at the speed of righteous anger and the commitment to protect and to preserve the goodness that lies in the land and in the heart of humankind.
We are awakening to the foolishness of our most destructive beliefs. Those who have contempt for waking up, for being “woke”, are the ones who depend on us to stay asleep, so we can sleepwalk to our destruction for the God they worship — Money.
Only the sleeping or the willfully deceiving can think or sell the idea that we can deface a mountain, strip-mine and frack away the fertile layers of the earth and our humanity, bore tunnels through her soul and ours — without cost.
How crazy is that?
We miss the music. We sit out on the dance, the invitation for us to join the evolution of our earth, of ourselves, and instead commit ourselves to destruction.
Because it’s profitable. It only costs lives.
Oh, is that all?
We can do better.
“All the sleeping women move now that they awaken.”
There is a mighty shift happening and I don’t know where it’s going. These seem like precarious times, like the sun doesn’t know whether to rise or sink further behind the dark.
But I think that’s what they want us to believe, the fear mongers, that the sun will not rise. They are counting on us to give in, so that we can essentially do half their work for them.
They are desperate to have us believe this. But they are panicking, because they know it’s not true.
They say the wounded animal is the most dangerous, the cornered animal, nothing to lose. Purchasers of power, writers of false narratives, hoarders of money, and devourers of life, democracy, and decency are wounded and cornered.
This is not the time to quit, to fall back asleep. Setbacks are just that — setbacks. Not the end of the journey. Not the end of the fight.
The sun has already made up its mind to rise.
We are asked to rise with it.
“Mountain Moving Day has come.”
I see my ancestors in the winding paths making their way to me.
“Stand on our imperfect shoulders”, they say, “Look around, we have brought you here. You must go further.”
And we must.
I hear it overhead. I feel it beneath my feet, the resonant bass of Woman in Labor, of humanity giving birth to something new. Life is happening.
The mountain is moving. And so are we.
Happy Mother’s Day to our Mother Earth and all who dwell upon her.
From my heart to yours,
Demian ~ Silent No More
Yosano Akiko (1878-1942), a prolific and visionary writer from Japan.
One of the best sources to keep up with the decimation of our protected lands and wildlife by this current regime is More Than Just Parks. It not only gives updates but offers, in each article, what you can in do to make a difference.