The Grand Tetons are the perfect place to fall in love with the Goddess - Sophia, Gaia, the Sacred Feminine, Mother Earth. After all, the early French explorers named these peaks "Le Trois Tetons," "The Three Tits." These peaks - like a woman - have enormous power. They create fierce thunderstorms, and hiking their steep canyon cleavages and passes always presents a challenge, especially when late-lying snowfields come into play. As a man, I've always found this range helpful in putting my attraction toward human embodiments of the Feminine into a larger context, one in which I find myself not so much a passive recipient of beauty (as is often the case when I encounter an attractive woman) but an active co-creator of that beauty. For while a woman may need nothing from me (and indeed, often does not WANT anything from me), the Goddess Earth needs my creativity and human consciousness to help reveal her personality hiding beneath layers of rock and snow. Sensing this truth, I wrote a poem some years ago. It begins with a few lines from a classical Indian poet writing about Radha, an incarnation of the Sacred Feminine:
Grand Teton Woman
"Seeking to cover my breasts with my hands,
I could not, - Just as the snow may not
conceal the southern hills."
Vidyapati, attributed to Radha
Confident gray granites thrust out into the sky
No foreground foothill corset has to
bolster up these curves
They play at covering up in a skimpy snow
bikini top
A futile, amusing attempt with peaks
so monumental
Radical canyon cleavages revel in their own
depths
A lively cascade necklace follows them ever lower
As geologic fingers
push the peaks together
making them into members
of a single mountain range
Seen from one perspective
they’re made of Precambrian rock
But thrust against my heart, they’re the
glory of a Goddess
Earth Woman, Gaia
the One who offers hints
She’d like for ME to reveal
Her personal female essence
hiding away inside
the impersonal granite layers
But I wonder: who am I, the one enjoying
this?
I’ve disappeared in bliss
with never a chance to answer
But the granite range remains
heartbreaking in its grandeur
The Goddess of the Mountains
The Grand Teton Woman
Still, I’m somehow present
As my mind’s astonished gaze
lights up her sunrise curves
in the purple alpenglow light
My sun nowhere in sight
Grand Teton National Park, WY, July 2006
Photos: The Grand Teton, Indian Paintbrush, Glacier Lilies and Lake Solitude, Grand Teton National Park, WY, July 3-4, 2015
