The Climb: Part V

Posted by CoreyWdeVos

Sep 29

Note: This piece was originally written almost ten years ago. Though my voice, my style, and my realization were still fairly immature, this piece is a celebration of one of the most sacred experiences of my life, and wanted to share with you all.

This is the fifth and final installment of an ongoing series. If you haven’t already, please begin with The Climb: Part I.

crazyhorseface We step onto the massive stone body of the Sioux, what appeared to be the ruins of an age-old epic battle between titan and medusa. We sense a profound air of sacredness as our feet plant themselves on the monument—talk about standing on the shoulders of giants; they don’t get much more giant than this.

Looking up, his visage towers above us. It is indescribably massive—we had just seen Mt. Rushmore before coming here, being only a twenty minute drive away, and felt the obligatory awe and wonderment and pseudo-patriotism that comes along with seeing the forefathers staring off into the horizon.

“Wow, George, Abe, Tom, and the other guy—who is that again? Wow. Okay let’s go smoke a bowl.”

Mt. Rushmore was mildly impressive, though cliché had certainly eclipsed genuine admiration, like seeing Niagara Falls after watching Superman II a dozen times as a kid. But this—this is different. This is intense! It is overwhelming—his face is eighty-five feet tall, his immense proboscis looming forty feet above us, nostrils flared in proud defiance. It is absolutely breathtaking.

I stand there, wrapped in reverie as I attempt to internalize what is happening. I think of the whole escapade, the delicate precision of circumstance that placed us exactly where we are. I think of Aphex’s birth at the inception of the very idea to leave home, as well as her role in our decision to climb up here. I think of the randomness of deciding to move to Oregon, and how surprised I was that I had chosen Oregon—almost like throwing a dart at a map. I think of the tragic irony of Kate’s decision to stay behind, and how my transportation somehow manifested through her decision. I am most definitely in some sort of Kerouacian bardo realm, on the road in-between lifetimes, dying to myself while being born for the very first time.

I think of our climb, and how if the timing had been off by even a few seconds we would certainly have been caught. If the engine had cut off before we had stopped and prepared to sprint, the worker would certainly have heard us climbing; seconds too late and we would have been seen running across the monument.

Everything was so precise; I had never felt so led or so guided. It was as though there were some sublime wind behind my sails pushing me towards myself, into the heart of the world. All I did was have a thought—a desire to better understand myself and the world around me, a wish to change my environment and become the person I knew I could be. All I did was have a thought, and my entire journey unfolded like a magic carpet ride. It felt effortless, despite all the work my journey required. I was testing my own faith, stepping out into the darkness just to see if the ground would remain beneath my feet. It always did. And there was the pervasive sense that for every step forward I made, an entire Kosmos took a step toward me.

Things have a way of simply happening. Some things want to happen; certain experiences just want to be—all by themselves, with or without the need for illusions of intention. Life occurs on its own accord, our participation within its efficacious web being intermediary at best, acting as living catalysts for events and incidents more real than ourselves. From the perspective of effortless awareness we become spectators to our own lives, and from this vantage we can learn to appreciate the flow of incidence that forms the palpable matrix of existence. We can dissolve ourselves into experience, slipping through the cracks of circumstance and effortlessly allowing Life to move through us, to animate our actions and bring into being something which does not belong to us, can seldom be perceived by us, yet remains utterly inseparable from us. Life happens all by itself, with and without us, before and beyond our peculiar need for self-imposition, intentionality, and control. Everything just happens – it is a very real and profound act of grace by which our particular involvement is invited at all. And all we can do is surrender in beatific admiration of what is truly Real.

In this moment I am eternally grateful. I am grateful for the air I am given the privilege to breathe, for the very living earth beneath my feet, for the absolute sanctity of that certain peculiar sequence of events that allowed me to be just where I am. I am grateful for the boundless passion of the man whose tenacity of vision brought forth the project of sculpting a mountain-sized monument. I am grateful to the spirit of Crazy Horse, a true American hero whose tenacity of purpose was the very inspiration for this tremendous homage. I am grateful for absolutely every element that goes into making this Moment what it is, the tenacity of being bringing forth everything that is universally Good, ultimately Beautiful, and undeniably True.

I have a realization. I remember when I was watching the documentary, I had seen people actually on the head of the monument. I tell Sean and Nena, and we walk off the shoulders to a dirt path behind Crazy Horse, scrambling up a hill until we find a ladder embedded in the rock leading to the top of his enormous head. I am the first up the ladder, the multi-story climb taking just a couple minutes.

When we reach the top, the view is unbelievable.

Because the circumference of the head was so small, and the monument so tall, when we follow Crazy Horse’s gaze forward into the twilight we can only see a swath of the mountain below us jutting into the darkness. The three giant floodlights that surround us are so bright we cannot see the stars in the sky, nor any geographical features beyond the penetrating lights. It is the emptiest vision I have ever witnessed—there is only the small patch of stone of Crazy Horse’s cranium beneath our feet, some waist-high scaffolding sitting like a crown atop his head (and which is preventing us from blowing off the mountain), and a deep, opaque blackness that was simultaneously illuminated with an intense invisible light. Trying to recount the experience, it eludes my best attempts to describe—there is so much light and so much darkness at the same time, it is like a visual paradox. I am bathed in light, a light so bright I can feel its weight pressing into my skin. Yet I am suspended in absolute, final blackness. I am an island of light floating within an infinite sea of nothingness.

All I can see is Void, the transparent light of Awareness, the empty brilliance of Ultimate Reality. This is some kind of reminder, a visual metaphor. What is truly astounding is not the physical characteristics of the experience, but the feelings I have—sensations that do not seem to be restricted to this moment alone, yet are somehow epitomized by it. I am reminded of that sweet feeling of undivided wholeness, where light and dark exist simultaneously, the nonexistent emptiness upon which all is superimposed. I have glimmers deep within me of that secret sacred Being from which I have never really been apart. I am on top of Moses’s mountain, feeling the burning light of I AMness ripping through my skin. I am atop Lao Tsu’s mountain, and here too the tao that can be spoken is not the Eternal Tao. There are no words up on top of Crazy Horse Mountain. There is only peace.

Time passes, I am not sure how much. Eventually we all look at each other and offer a mutual nod, a gesture that it is time to go back down the ladder, say our goodbyes to Crazy Horse, and get on our way. But Crazy Horse still has one more surprise waiting for us.

We move toward the ladder. Nena is the first to climb down. She places her foot on the top rung, and as soon as it makes contact there is an thunderous CLUNK as two of the three floodlights suddenly turn off. Again, the timing is so eerily precise, it felt almost like something or someone must be toying with us. It is absolutely bizarre—the front and back lights were gone, leaving only one side of the monument illuminated. After waiting a few minutes for our eyes to adjust, we descend the ladder and came back onto Crazy Horse’s shoulder. The view is simply astonishing. The left side of his face is lit, while rest remains obscured in shadow. The effect is mesmerizing, and I can feel the experience already carving deep into my memory, accompanied by a gentle but persistent voice that simply says: “Don’t forget this.”

While on top of his head I experienced the mystical interpenetration of light and darkness, swallowing both in a single experience—but here the single nondual experience had teased itself apart into the dramatic duality before my eyes. Radical distinction co-exists within radical unity, a paradox that leads directly to the unsolvable Mystery of being.

For one glorious moment, I really feel like I am at the center of the universe—or rather, that the entire universe is in the center of me. I was being offered a brief glimpse at the hidden geometry of experience, the precious symmetry of action, intention, circumstance, and meaning. I know that, by a very real act of grace, I have been invited to be a participant in something more beautiful than I could have ever known—something at once profoundly universal, yet utterly unique to myself and my perspective. And I can already see how this sacred night would become a living metaphor in my memory, an almost alchemical symbol of transformation that would radiate from beneath the sediments of mind, guiding my hand as I carve my own face out of the cold granite of my life.

“Don’t forget this,” Crazy Horse whispered to me while standing under his impossible shadow. I never will.

Note: None of the photos included in this blog series are my own. I did have a camera with me that night, and i snapped at least three rolls of film throughout my adventure, but sadly when i tried to develop them days later in Seattle, all the film was somehow damaged and could not get a single photograph. Evidently Crazy Horse did not want his soul to be stolen by my camera that night.

But here are a few more images that i found online that i thought i would share with you all.