All That Is Gold Does Not Glitter, Not All Places Must Be Sought
Dunglagepu the tallest. It’s not like I discovered mountains or spirituality that I write this. It’s that I discovered that places are to be greeted as an individual. I met one on a short trip to the base of the higher Himalaya where the night-time cold had just about dropped to zero. The days were warm, hot even on a climb of a few hundred meters, and mornings and evenings cold. On a clear day, a few cottony clouds clung to the snowless mountains – the winter snow had not begun – the sunshine nourishing my skin. Meeting a place by happenstance is increasingly rare in this world. A place which simply accepts you, talks to you, and leaves a lasting impression that quite, even if subtly, changes you – how I have yearned to meet if not search for one. Writing about meeting one is tough. It is always overwhelming to describe somebody, a place is perhaps the most complex persona to describe, be it a garden, a grove, or a landscape. An autumn in the mountains. Some places ought to be as th...