The Mountain's Got a Spirit

 

"It is very important that we be connected to the elements as a human race.  As a Native person, I am connected to these elements, because I can hear their voices.  I hear all their songs and everything else.  I'm asking each thing to continue on in a good way.  I have to do something so that all of the elements continue on . . .  For example, I bless the mountain . . . I ask the Mountain to continue to have a voice, to have songs . . . If the mountain doesn't have a voice, then we as a people are not going to have a voice pretty quick.  All the living things are not going to have any voice, because the mountain is where the voice comes from.  The mountain is where the people are, the little people up there, the mountain people, as we call them, or the rock people - they're up there listening to us.  They're the ones we have to pray to; they're the ones who take care of the mountain . . . We have to ask what's out there, the rocks, the land, the living things, to unite together; everything has to work together.  Long ago, the land, the mountains, used to have more voice, a clearer voice, clearer than what it is today.  The land, the rocks, they used to continue to tell us over and over again to take care of them and to ask us to do those things.  But today, we're lost, and I think it's the reason we're not concerned with anything; we just look at a mountain as if it's just there, nothing more.  But the mountain's got a life to it.  Everything's got a spirit; the mountain's got a spirit, and all the living things on the mountain have got a spirit . . . One of the reasons why their voice is not clear and loud anymore is because we haven't been taking care of them."

Corbin Harney, Western Shoshone Elder

Photo: Sunset alpenglow on Skinny Fish Lake; Flattops Wilderness, CO; June 13, 2014