For me, one of the most beautiful features of Cascadian Spirituality is a heightened awareness of the Sacred Feminine. This is especially true at Mount Rainier, where the local Nisqually tribe's name for the mountain ("Ta-co-bet") means "nourishing breast." Here, the Beargrass that blooms on many of the slopes serves to enhance this association of landscape and Goddess. Like a confident woman, Rainier has a mind of her own, continually creating her own weather, revealing and concealing her voluptuous form in fog and clouds all day and all night. However, this association between Woman and Landscape is not some mere anthropomorphic concoction. As in any experience of mystical union, the intermingling of opposites runs two ways. Thus, while in the presence of a sensitive human observer, the non-personal landscape suddenly becomes alive with personal femininity, the observer is changed as well, able to transcend the ego-self in the act of absorbing the non-personal aspects of a 4.5 billion year history. When in the presence of Rainier, I find myself suddenly able to become more spacious, transcendent, and less ego-driven. As a man, I find that the erotic aspect of my nature takes on a wider perspective, able to fall in love with the Feminine Earth rather than simply being consumed in the typical male attraction to human femininity. This two-way exchange is made possible by the elation and joy I feel in the presence of this astonishing mountain, which causes a swirling sensation within my heart - like that of a Sufi whirling dervish - that spins together the realms of personal and non-personal. Of course, any poet will know exactly what I mean!
Photo: Mount Rainier and Beargrass, with glimmerings of Eunice Lake peeking through; Tolmie Peak Trail, Mount Rainier National Park, WA; July 29, 2013. The haze on the left side of Rainier is from forest fires raging to the east.
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