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MOUNTAIN MAGIC with Ann Hite
MOUNTAIN MAGIC with Ann Hite
By the time, dear readers, you read this column, I will be hidden away in my beloved mountains, far from phones, where the only sounds I hear at night are owls calling back and forth, the stars so numerous in the sky I am speechless, the painting of the horizon so brilliant I won’t remove my stare to capture a photo that would never do it justice anyway; instead I relax into experiencing it in the moment. Writing the words in my head to describe if for a later use. Yet, will that fall short? Surely so.
This retreat is a time of stillness where I hear the voices deep in my thoughts, telling stories in a haunting stenciled kind of way. Think about the cave drawings found stenciled on the rocky walls. Paint blown over a human’s hand. The art created from what was removed. Stenciled like a tattoo for those thousands of years in the future. In this way we have proof of the ancient artists that felt moved to create long before they had the written word. These were their stories. Magic is in the voices lingering on these walls, inspiring those in the future to create, to spin straw into gold.
On this trip, I will meet mountain magic in person, hear the whispers calling me before the road rises into the softly rounded, cloud-shrouded mountains. The mist hugs the ground in the valley at dusk, the gray light, the time the stories of the past lives, overlaps like a grainy black and white film. If I am quiet and listen, mountain magic gives me a tale, a poem, sometimes even a book. The cool air swims in on the cries of the wild turkeys as they find their place to roost for the night. This is the time of haints, of haunting lives, important stories imprinted on the soul of the land.
As a child my heart was open to imagination, the magic, the belief that rivers were living beings, that fairies hid from adults in the form of fireflies. Mountain magic was my constant companion that I kept closest to my heart. As a writer I believe in mountain magic, still, to this very day. My art is the rushing water that overflows its banks, spilling into words that paint images, that tell the stories we as humans depend on, feed on, nurture ourselves with.
As my annual meetup with mountain magic nears, my dreams are filled with new characters, a magic house with its own voice. If we want to bloom as artists, we must open our minds to the haunting tales that seem the most unlikely, our hearts to the books attempting to be written. We have to suspend the practical belief in everyday life. Cross over into the heart of telling. The place my granny loved the most when she sat with her sisters talking about the once upon a times.
Where does the mountain magic reside for you, dear readers? Are you still engaged enough to hear its whispers, to grow in the uncanny offer in front of you? Be open to magic. Seek it out. Create, dream, and just be inside of it. Put pen to paper, paint to canvas, hands to clay. Mold what is deep within you. Be the cave people from so long ago. Stencil your hearts on the walls.
Happy hunting! We will meet again when I return.
