My Mountains (new photos)

Man and Nature has always been involved in longterm relationships. It’s not a news, or maybe it is today, as technology give us the chance to reach everywher, but sometimes it’s like we never move.

Let’s think about it. I booked a 20 days trip with my love to Caribbean Paradise. And then, thank to my mobile provider I could open facebook, whatsapp, instagram and a few of other cool internet based app that made my day super connected. But if I’m on a wonderful Anguila’s Beach making videos with my GoPro, am I there or am I projected to the future where those video will be viewed? If I’m posting my selfies on the instagram, am I there walking on the sand or am I on an international virtual space bringing heavy MB to my Inter-personal Social Space to share it with Others?

So I’m connected, I’m with you now, reading this post. I’m entering your home. Yes I’m doing this, it’s kinda creepy I know and I don’t want to imply that a heavy industrial marketing-based platform like a news website, a real blogger’s blog, or Facebook is there with me and with other interest out of simply connecting to you (Check your wallet I say, just in case…). So if I’m there, where am I really? Am I here writing a post? Am I still in my present? Where my inspiration comes from. My past wish of being a writer, my present wish of writing a post about someone I care about (let’s read to the end to understand this), or my future desire to make this blog a place for people to share themselves without Masks (you should read my book about it…).

These and more questions are the principle on which I base my desire of rediscovering connection, because let’s face this now: when I’m with you on your train, in your house, or your car (please drive safely… and do not play pokemon!), I’m not really there. Well maybe a part of my intention is, but just for an instant and totally merged with the high level interference of the powerful communication Socials that are reigning over our life. And at the same time I’m not with myself neither, as I’m partly projected all around the world. So in the end: where is Me?

Since I was a child I had the chance of experimenting the real nature of the highest mountain, just between Italian and French border. My parents bought one o f the first houses built on the highest town of the mountain, so there were us and a few people living there on summer and winter. I think this is the origin of my deep passion with floral and herbal remedies and of course the place where I can find that connection I’m looking for, to Me.

That’s right, over there internet as arrived lately and if you choose to live there during high season you just can’t be present as the huge masses of tourists, the cellphones, the “holidays vibes” are the ones that interfere with your connection with yourself. But if you choose, like I do, to go there on  low season, and the mountains just opens to you. They give you access to the present, to the past and to a bright and dark future at the same time. Nature isn’t a good mother, it’ life, it’s bitter and sour as much as sweet and spicy.

We’re alive, and we’re dying. We don’t have much time. We need meaning, and if you’re like me, your meaning you will create it by embracing and loving your destiny, byt accepting your way even if it’s not popular nor recognized by the Big Ones. Every moment of our life is a story without time, infinite and perfect. So when we look for religious answers we’re looking for the same motivation drive I feel when I’m on my mountain. Alone. I’m Alone. As everyone else, as Me, as you reading this. We’re alone if we’re lost in the present ocean. Stillness, mindfullness and prayers are risky from this perspective. They put us in the present, maybe, but actually no one should be in the present only. We’re here to remember. Our DNA is not that unique as we think it is, we are merely a reproduction of someone else lived in the past and living in a future. Just a little mixed up.

So when I’m alone in the mountains, when I’m lost in the still fog, I can finally close my phone, disconnect myself and find my true connection with Me, which is also, of course a connection to the people around me, but without their masks. There are my friends in my mist, my family, and people caring about me as much as my enemies, and opponents, and people trying to make my life harder to protect themselves from my work. So loneliness became filled with company. Real company, real projections of people interacting with me. That is the real social network, the original one. And I can like and “heart” anyone as much as the foggy projections of the people around me can do the same to me. We just have more time to see the meaning of it.

I have a friend, be careful, not a Friendollar, an actual friend who share with me this mountain passion. She writes about it on her Rhapsody Boheme blog along with life experiences so similar to mine that sometimes I feel I could connect with those mountains too through the poetical view she has taking pictures. There are some places on hearth that have some strong power inside, and people like us can feel it, we’re drawn toward it by the meaning these mountain have in our common ancestral traditions. Mountains are the highest places on hearth, the material connection between the soil and the sky. Mountain is The Connection between us and a higher meaning, between us and our destiny, between the real us and the best we wish from ourselves.

So that’s where my Mountain Connection comes from my dear friend. Today I’m not that far from Sierra Mountains here in Madrid where I could find amazing spots when I was there with friends a few years ago, but I don’t have any picture. One day I hope I can take some nice pictures of them to share with you. In the meantime when you’re there on your mountains just brush some grass or gently caress a flower for me, and maybe we can connect and share that instant together. And as you were inspiring warriors yesterday with poetry, I hope I can inspire your strength with my photos today.

And all of you who will read this, have a wonderful day, and remember that wherever you are, there is a better place waiting for you, and it’s not that far, it’s in your deepest and more honest dream of a better world for you and all of us.

Luca Povoleri