What brings me here?

[Jon Penney]

When you first sign up for the Dark Mountain Network, you're asked the question 'What brings you here?

 

So,

what brings me here, to the Dark Mountain?

Why does anybody want to be a mountaineer?

To be far away from the city, the industry, the roads and traffic.

To feel alive, exposed to the wind and rain, the sunshine,

and to be amongst other mountaineers.

......................The beauty of modern

Man is not in the persons but in the

Disastrous rhythm, the heavy and mobile masses, the dance of the

Dream-led masses down the dark mountain.

(from Rearmament by Robinson Jeffers and reproduced in the Dark Mountain Manifesto)

In Rearmament, the 'dream led masses' are making their way down the dark mountain. The momentum of the masses and the hazardous mountain can only lead to catastrophe.

Experienced mountaineers prefer to navigate the mountain in daylight. The darkness of night is for setting up camp, lighting a fire, talking, listening, telling stories, and then sleeping and dreaming, but not to dream the dreams of the 'dream led masses', to dream the dreams of your own experience, of your own life.

I am brought here, because I think it is a place where honesty prevails and sadly, honesty is the rarest of commodities in the world today.

Dishonesty driven by the desire to control and manipulate is in abundance. What passes as mainstream belief, politics and culture has become so toxicly riddled with dishonesty that overexposure to it (as most of us are) can only result in disorientation and confusion.

I recognise I am one of the 'dream led masses'. Most of us are to some extent, but I'm trying to wake up. The dream is turning into a nightmare and confronting reality is far less frightening than living in a nightmare. We wake to find storm clouds gathering on the horizon, but these are geoengineered storm clouds of human origin. In the 21^st century, geoengineered storms that cause devastation create opportunities. Disaster and suffering is good business. The fate of people and other animals, the earth and its habitats is of no consequence.

I think another clue to, what brings me here is found in my answer to the other question you're asked when you sign up for the Dark Mountain Network. You are also asked to 'Please tell us a bit about yourself'.

I wrote just a few lines, and described myself as a Wageslave and Sandcastlegalaxymaker.

The Wageslave bit is self explanatory. We all do what we have to do. I'm not complaining, I'm glad I have a job. but I thought my wageslavery was worth mentioning as it consumes a lot of my time and shapes the course of my days, weeks and years.

Describing myself as a Sandcastlegalaxymaker was a bit more cryptic and an attempt to make me sound more mysterious and interesting. By describing myself thus, it sounds like I may spend a large amount of my free time making sandcastles that resemble galaxies. This is not the case. I have only ever made one and I'm not sure that it actually resembled a galaxy, but is was my best attempt at the time.

The making of the sandcastlegalaxy was a spontaneous act of creativity, I found myself on holiday with a bucket and spade, a beach full of sand, children happily playing elsewhere, it took  the best part of the afternoon to make and was a race against time to get finished. I enlisted the families help to collect white stones from the beach and as a finishing touch placed one on top of each sandcastle, and then as soon as it was finished the tide was in and it was gone.

The reason I mention this is because I think making my Sandcastlegalaxy and the reason I've come to the Dark Mountain have (some) similarities. To be creative, away from the continuous hum drum toil going on elsewhere, to feel the elements and even to be thwarted by them (the incoming tide) and then to be able tell the story afterwards.

It was a day well spent,

possibly one of my best.

[Tim Fox]

Thanks for sharing this!  Seeing the photo, I couldn't help but think of William Blake's sandcastlegalaxy made of words.

"To see the world in a grain of sand, and to see heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hands, and eternity in an hour."