I have been reading a book recently called Braiding Sweet Grass, it is written by a Native American lady who works as a professor of biology. Her book struck a chord with me, probably because I have always found great interest in older tribal communities and indigenous teachings, a keenness for old wisdom. This book was recommended to me by a lady who interviewed me earlier this summer, to gather data for a research project around the reasons people go to the high mountains and their spiritual connection to the mountains. It turns out that around Chamonix there are a whole plethora of people with very different reasons for spending time in the mountains.
After our interview she suggested I might like this book and I have been slowly absorbing and enjoying the author’s refreshing perspectives. The book explores the reciprocal relationships between humans and the land, with a focus on the role of plants and botany in both native American and western traditions. During one chapter, Robin the author, is discovering and trying to learn the fast dying, traditional, native language of Pottawatomie, the tribe of her ancestry. She talks of learning the grammar of animacy. To be native to a place we must learn to speak its language. In Pottawatomie a tree or plant or a mountain is not referred to as it, but as another person or being. Trees and plants and nature are being, they are 'being tree' or 'being flower'. They only use the 'it' when referring to man made objects such as a table.
Yet in western society there seems to be more of a divide between humans and nature which shows in the structure of our language. We refer to things other than ourselves and our own humankind as ‘it’ which creates an objective nature to our relationships with these other beings in the world. This can be very useful in objective observation, but it removes the connection and understanding that they are beings, even the mountains and rocks they would consider to be being. This chapter really interested me, perhaps because I am slowly trying to learn french and taking an interest in language. I would recommend anyone to read it to understand better what I am poorly trying to convey. In Pottawatomie culture people would have spent time being with the trees, watching and being with the beavers and the rivers and the salmon. Respecting that they had much to learn about life from each of these beings.
Because I have been spending most of my summer in the high mountains, guiding, I automatically related these topics to my life and my connection with the mountains. A feeling that is hard to put words to. It has occurred to me that I have been raised by mountains. Their introduction into my life at around the age of twelve has shaped the rest of my life. I think I found them or maybe they found me, at a very influential time. A time when I needed their strength. I spent a lot of time just being with them. I do this far less as an adult. Wondering about their size and majesty, listening to their streams roaring, their glaciers occasional creak, the rumble of a distant rock fall whilst a butterfly lands on my top. Listening in wild places we are audience to conversations in a language not our own.
I would sit out under a star strewn sky tracing their silhouettes with my eyes, back and forth, searching in their shadows for more details. I dreamed of them, what it might feel like to stand on their snowy summits. When they were not around, I filled my walls with pictures of them. I believed they might give me the community I was longing for, I somehow trusted they had lessons to teach me, and I followed them. As my relationship with them progressed we passed through many periods of difficulty and upset. When they scared me, I felt hurt by them and alone, when they were brutal, cold, and hounded me with harsh winds, I cried. I shouted at them and sometimes I blamed them. But in reality, they were just there, big and solid, changing and testing, giving me the lessons I needed to learn, reflecting back at me, my own attitudes and beliefs. What has struck me is they are always there, solid, silent and waiting. I learned to trust that and relax my uptight young self a little. They did not judge me or criticize me they were just being themselves, with all the richness of life, both hard and beautiful. The wordless being of others, in which we are never alone.
Robin touches on a note of language, comparing the native grammar of Potawotami with the grammar of the English language, widely used in science and in records of the natural world. She suggests we talk about the natural world very objectively using the pronoun ‘it’ which leads to us, as humans, to become separated from the natural world. I wonder does this disconnect relate to an unfathomable sadness in us. In turn this disconnect makes it easier to take from and have power over the natural world.
I have pondered often, the language that we use in climbing and mountaineering culture. Conquered is the first that springs to mind. The use of this term usually makes me squirm inside. We do not conquer mountains. We are lucky to be allowed passage by the mountain. Of course we have to work hard to learn the skills and train hard to achieve these summits but it is luck and patience that allow us the opportunity for the conditions and timing to align so that we might have chance to summit. We do not conquer the mountain and they remind us of that all the time as they shed massive rock falls and take lives. Not on purpose, they mean no harm, they are just being themselves. However 'we’ as humans, love to claim ownership, just as we wanted owner ship of native lands that people shared once, more harmoniously and respectfully with nature. Perhaps this is what draws me to mountains. They are strong, they will always ultimately be more powerful than us. We cannot always build hotels on their summits or train lines on their sides. When we live at their feet, we are subject to their changes and sometimes their dangers which are too large and unexpected for us to ever be able to fully control.
As climbers I have noticed we have a culture of phrases that suggest dominance over pieces of rock and ice. Phrases such as ‘smashed that route’ or going for ‘a smash and grab ascent’ or ‘you crushed it’ or ‘you nailed it’. I have used them myself without any thought, they are meant to be compliments of our strength and ability but somehow I feel we are missing something. I remember being taught once that the mountains are always trying to kill you and to think of other climbers on the mountain as the enemy, watch out for them. So much war talk. Yet we are not at war with the mountains they are not trying to kill us, on purpose. We do not need to fear them but connect with them. It is my job as the climber to learn to listen to them, to respect them, to speak their language and to be humbled by them. There is so much to be learned from them.
When you learn to walk on a glacier, there is so much subtlety to notice. From the shapes and lines of crevasses hidden under snow, the different colours of ice and its relative strength in relation to how hard you may need to stamp your feet in crampons. The sound and feel of a good ice axe placement. The subtle feeling of a warm wind on your cheek at first light tells us there may not have been a refreeze. The sudden chill of a cold front approaching. What does a rapidly building storm cloud look like? When does the rock texture feel more fragile under your fingers, how hard can your afford to pull? But I still don't know why I see butterflies on the glaciers, are they in search of small alpine flowers? These signs are learned from time spent observing the mountain and tuning into them. I think one of the things I like most about working as a guide in the mountains, is the fact that we are working with nature. I can try to use wisdom and knowledge to achieve outcomes, but ultimately, we are never fully in control, and neither is any other human. We make our choices and decisions, and nature does her thing. We both have a part to play. When I keep that in mind and let societal pressures and expectations drop away, I feel calm and can tune into the language of the mountains more clearly.
Before my final guides exam, I remember taking a walk in the evening light and talked out loud to the mountains. I was ready to be finished in the process and this pressure was building. I knew I needed to stay steady and tune in. I asked for their help in keeping me safe and in passing. This somewhat crazy chit chat seemed to help me. I promised in return that once I was qualified, I would strive to do more for the protection of wild places. Though I don’t yet know if I am doing enough to keep that side of my promise.
More often, when sleeping in a mountain refuge before a climb the next day, I wonder outside to soak in the soft evening light and breathe in the stillness before dark. I try to remember to listen not just take photos. Then I silently thank them for our safe passage and ask for it again for tomorrow, just as I promise myself I will honor and respect them in return. This connection gives me a sense of moral obligation, to think of them as I do another sentient being. I think this prompts me to take an extra piece of litter back sometimes and to make sure I act with respect.
Recently with a heat wave, the glaciers have been looking very dry and dirty. The melted snow exposing large expanses of bare ice and collections of rubbish from climbers gone by. On the final fifty meters to the summit of the Pigne d’Arolla we passed smashed wine bottles and old cans of food. I wondered how old some of these cans and debris are and of what those climbers were thinking when they left all that litter scattered on this summit. Did they bury it thinking it would not be revealed again? Fairly unsightly presents to leave for other climbers to find many years later. It made me think about what I would or wouldn't want to leave as presents for other people and climbers in the future to find.
At the end of this chapter, Robin recalls a conversation with Bill, a Shian elder. "We do not need to speak Pottawatomie or the language of the plants and animals from here" he said, pointing at his lips. “They will hear us as long as we speak it here.” he said, pointing at his chest.
So maybe it is ok that I only speak a little of the native language of the country I live and not a word of Pottawatomie.
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