Prophets and priests ascend the mountain for divine interaction. Is it because God's in the sky? No, they climb to reach the silence.
When the prophet Elijah fled to the mountain, he heard God's voice in "a light silent sound" (1 Kings 19:12, New American Bible translation). What does this mean?
No great change of altitude is required before sensitive ears and lungs feel the effects of the thin air. "Stop," Elijah's body might have said at first. "Be still and consider where you are."
The physical sensation, almost a shove to Elijah's chest, could have seemed like a cold rebuke. And in his ears -- a high, high, distant whine, some noisy distractions, and eventually, when he got used to it, complete silence. From the silence came the commands of God: Anoint two warrior kings . . . and a successor prophet. A successor? How long have I got?
Much later, after a life of troubles instigated by following holy orders, Elijah was taken up to the sky in a fiery chariot; make of that what you will. He didn't ask for the job. But behold, God spoke to him in silence.
If, like Elijah, you have ascended to commune, you know the communion won't be with a brother or an equal. You know you must be very, very patient. And you know you must be alone.
And if you haven't come to talk to God, you're just a human on a mountain, admiring the beauty. Admiring, and wondering why you feel so strange.
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Outside the dusty little mountain town of San Lorenzo Abarradas, in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, there is a place of motionless waterfalls. Mineral springs trickle over a horseshoe cliff into a verdant valley. The minerals saturate the water so densely, and the water moves so slowly, that the water has left stone remnants that look like frozen streams, some quite long and some glowing in many pastel colors.
Though now a tourist attraction, this misnamed Hierve el Agua (the water in the pools doesn't boil, it's cool) must have been a sacred site in the past. Unlike the local Monte Alban, a spectacular site of ancient Zapotec-Mixtec temples, it shows no trace of the monument-builder's chisel, just a few modern accommodations. Ancient peoples must have considered it a special sanctuary -- a place where even the flowing water stops to listen. To build would have been sacrilege.
Adding to the mystery is a sort of mini-volcano near the cliff's edge, a few feet tall and hardly more than 7 paces in diameter, looking much like the sacred Popocateptl far to the north. It even has a little cone at the top through which a spring must have once issued. Or someone could build a fire?
A hawk circles. Cattle graze in the valley far below. Mountains stand all around. Tourists might be talking, but their voices float instantly away.
Tribal priests must have come here for thousands of years. Maybe they made sacrifices. Surely, as the sun went around and around and around, they waited, hoping the silence would speak to them.
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PHOTO BY DIANA DIAZ.