On a late Friday evening with the busy week behind me I relax in a comfy chair, in my hand a warming nightcap, by my side an old companion, a treasured volume of Hanshan, Cold Mountain, the hermit poet of China’s Tang Dynasty. Outside a winter wind blows and cold rain falls through bare branches but inside my home all is warm and quiet, the trials and frustrations of the past week drifting away into the stillness of my room.
Dipping into the book I find myself wandering amongst cloud covered mountains and tumbling hill streams, confronting the hypocrisy of rich and powerful people, glimpsing the expression in a rabbit’s eyes and learning from Hanshan, as he tries to make us, to make us all, a little better.
Spring water is pure in the emerald stream
moonlight is white on Cold Mountain
silence thoughts and the spirit becomes clear
focus on emptiness and the world grows still
Cold Mountain
Tr. Red Pine
In the warmth of the room I let my eyes gently close and imagine myself in the heart of the scene described by Han Shan. But in reality, this poem touches on just one or two telling details of a larger, richer, panorama that was set before the poet. As the minuets drift by and the quietness of my room becomes ever deeper, my imagination brings images from my past wanderings to places I once knew and loved, scenes of lonely mountain tracks, windswept moorlands and hidden valleys. Gradually poem and imagination merge to become one, it is almost like the poet is here standing with me, his short verse somehow completed by my dreams.
I have gone to these remote and quiet places many times to spend at least a little time, in the solitude of well-wooded hills and wide meandering valleys. But in more recent times the paths I stroll are those of our local park. Wandering down the main avenue lined with tall trees and with the first of the season’s snowdrops starting to show, it is not long before the noise of the busy road behind me is replaced by the music of chattering birds preparing for spring and the sound of the White Cart’s rushing waters. Leaving the main path I go in search of those forgotten tracks that people hardly ever use, these places where it is easier to cut the ties of a confined and busy life for a while, and find beauty in nature rather than in art. It simpler to slow down here, to delight in the fragrancy of the turning season, and breathe deeply of the clean fresh air of freedom.
Standing high above the Cart, at a place where a slow moving burn joins the river’s main flow, I look up stream to where its water moves sinuously around a sweeping bend; here the Cart is like a river of molten silver. Not another person around, this is the land of fox, roe deer and badger, a secret landscape hidden from all. Few ever find this place, only those who have lost their way in the peacefulness that abounds here. Time moves onwards, the wind starts to strengthen and the air becomes colder, the sinuous river of silver becomes increasingly agitated and the chattering birds become silent once again.
Standing in the lonely winter breeze a solitary, contented figure, turns towards the comfort and warmth of home.