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In the northern wilds of Jeju, there is a mountain whose shoulders are cloaked in cedar and whose heart runs with hidden rivers. The villagers sometimes like to say the mountain does not sleep--it only waits, listening. I grew up in its shadow, almost like I belonged to the mountain and not the other way around. As a boy, my father often took me into the forest to gather firewood and herbs for various medicines and healing conco- ctions. I remember those days fondly, sitting alongside him as he taught me which branches crack under too little weight, how mushrooms hide poison beneath their soft caps, and how patient trees split stone in their relentless march for sun- light. On one such outing, I remember the smell of rain as the sky suddenly dimmed without warning, pouring cleansing water over the entire forest. My father and I took shelter beneath an overhang of protective stone. We waited, laughing about our misfortune, as the trees chattered amidst the shower. The earth shuddered, stones rattling loose. For a moment I was scared that the mountain might be preparing to swallow us whole, but as suddenly as it began, the tremor passed. In the silence that followed, I leaned against the rock wall. It was warm. Maybe it was the alarm of the tremor, but it almost felt like the mountain was pulsing, breathing; the slow, patient breath of the land itself. I mused to myself, what if there was some kind of life force or energy pulsing through all living things, even though we can't see it? That day, I began to realize that my existence was that of an ant, in a complex, swirling miasma of interactions between differ- ent forces in the world. ((Continued in Part 2...)) | |