Why I Love the Mountains...

Reading: Belonging: and the Culture of Place-- bell hooks-
and Botany of Desire-- Michael Pollan -


I love the mountains because they are many. The mountains are old, and the mountains are various. Full of surprises, they capture the age and wisdom of Apollo and the playfulness of Coyote.

Reading these two books today gave me further insight into the mountains attractive nature.

Mountains are full of micro-climates-- giving zones quite close to each other very different climates in precipitation and in temperature. The benefits to the gardener are immediately apparant: A much greater variety of plants may be grown for beauty, food, and lumber.

A Pollan points out: the Andean peoples used what would have come as a great difficulty to the modern industrial monoculturalist to their advantage; they bred thousands of varieties of potatoes, of different sweetness, size, color, of texture, for the animals, etc. This incredible diversity also enabled them to prevent the possibility that a particular disease (or other susceptibility) could wipe out their crop. This was made possible- basically demanded-- by their topography. Each side and elevation of a mountain recieved different amounts of rainfall, different amounts of light, and different temperature ranges.

As a side note, linguistic research shows also how diverse dialects can be due to the effects of mountainous geography on human culture. I remember reading/hearing that New Guinea had a greater density of different tongues than anywhere else in the world due to this: cultures at different elevations had different diets and different tongues-- despite having trade between the cultures. !

bell hooks, in the introductory chapter of her latest book, speaks about how mountain people have a fierce self-determination and anarchist principles in her native state of Kentucky. Despite being acutely aware of the racial strife going on in most of the united states, country life in Kentucky was a world basically free of white supremecist imperialist.

Besides their beauty, i think this summarizes well why the mountains have so much draw: They engender so much diversity within all life forms- animals and plants-- They grant a huge diversity of opportunities to any community appreciative of the natural world.

They also give a sort of natural otherworldly quality to living. Being surrounded by such immense, old and strong beings in their own environment such as mountains, gives one the feeling that they're in a blessed and special place being there, and wondering what peculiarities exist for this particular being.

Their only drawback for such a human community is their possible isolation. However, along the Appalacians in the East and the Cascades in the West there is enough population surrounding them in order to find a way to pay off a lease and sell some cheese.


-the dancing goda