Yunnan Mountain Series

Shanzidou Sunrise, Mt Satseto, Yunnan Province

“Descending from the pass, the loveliness of the valley hit me with staggering force, as it always did when I made this journey to Lijiang in spring-time. I had to dismount and contemplate this scene of paradise. The air was like champagne; the weather, warm but with a tinge of freshness that came from the great Snow Range dominating the valley. Mount Satseto sparkled in the setting sun, a dazzling white plume waving from its top. Storms were raging high up there and the powdered snow was whirling up into the air like feathers on a cap. Below, everything was serene.”
Peter Goullart – The Forgotten Kingdom (1955)

Evening Light – Shanzidou, Mt Satseto, Yunnan Province

We have been to Tiger Leaping Gorge and seen the cliff line plummeting 11,000 feet into the Yangtze. We have watched the Nakhi women coming down from the Snow Range, with their bundles of pine and artemisia; and one old woman with a bamboo winnowing basket on her back, and the sun’s rays passing through it.
Bruce Chatwin (1986)

I’m looking across three twilight mountains,

clouds billowing empty and boundless away.
Meng Hao-jan (689-740)

After the Storm- Shanzidou, Yunnan Province

Sunlight on Incense-Burner kindles violet smoke.

Watching the distant falls hanging there, river

headwaters plummeting three thousand feet in flight

I see the star river falling through nine heavens.
Li Bo (701-762)

Cloud Rock Study, Mount Satseto, Yunnan Province

Massed peaks pierce the sky’s cold colours;

here, the trail junctions with the temple path.

Shooting stars pass into sparse-branched trees;

the moon travels one way, clouds the other.
Chia Tao (777-841)

Turning seasons turning wildly away, morning’s majestic calm unfolds.

Out in spring clothes I cross eastern fields.

A few clouds linger, sweeping mountains clean.

Gossamer mist blurs open skies.
T’ao Ch’ien (365-427)

Sunset over Tiger Leaping Gorge, Yunnan Province

In our idleness, cinnamon blossoms fall.

In night quiet, spring mountains stand

empty. Moonrise startles mountain birds:

here and there, cries in a spring gorge.
Wang Wei (701-761)

Teahouse, Lijiang Old Town, Yunnan Province

But whatever makes living precious occurs in this one life, and this

life never lasts. It’s startling, sudden as lightening. These hundred

years offer all abundance: Take it! What more could you make of yourself?
T’ao Ch’ien (365-427)

Dorset Tones

Altarpieces

It ever was, and is, and shall be, ever-living fire, in measures being kindled and in measures going out
Heraclitus (500 BCE)

Returning is the motion of the Tao

Yielding is the way of the Tao

The the thousand things are born of being

Being is born of not-being
Laozi (Chapter 40)

Atsanko Gorge, Yunnan (aka Tiger Leaping Gorge)

For humans conform to the earth

the earth conforms to the sky,

and the sky conforms to the course;

but the course conforms to how everything is

when left to itself –

conforming to nothing at all.
Laozi – Chapter 25 (trans. Brook Ziporyn)