Tag Archives: Tolkien

…Always Watching…

by

They are… always watching…

…always watching…

I live in a heavily touristed mountain region. Guests from around the world in 2026 come for an hour or two to see the Jungfrau. The Jungfrau? A mountain? 

Then the modern tourists are off to their next destination. Few are aware that this Jungfrau Region has been walked by the likes of Tolkien and Byron. Tolkien and Byron visited when the only means of transport were their own two legs. They walked. They slept. They walked again—over days. For them this region was life-changing. Why, you might ask?

Because, as one put it: “I saw the mountains but the mountains did not see me. I wasn’t there long enough.” Let me interpret. The enormity of these mountains, the enormity of their physical presence is the clue. They have a time frame, nay, a speed of communication that does not fit into today’s tourist drive by.

Byron captured it in Canto 3 of his ‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’. Tolkien captured it in the Rivendel landscape in his ‘Lord of the Rings’. The Jungfrau Region mountains’ mood and communication comes via their microclimate, their clouds,  their waterfalls—sunrise, sunset, moonrise over days, weeks, seasons.

They are… always watching… 

2023 IS RUNNING OUT

by

Just for a moment… while you still have time… where does your knowledge come from?

Put aside your scientific understanding about the formation of clouds and fog… and consider this image.

Explore. The image is no clearer than your understanding of what you will find hiking into this valley.  This was one of the Alpine experiences of Byron, Goethe, Tolkien and Franz Hartmann. 

Who is Franz Hartmann? And why does it matter? He wrote “The Foundation of Christian Mysticism”.

Occult is an interesting throw-away domain. It is like a trash can in the science and philosophy labs where everything, that doesn’t quite fit the ‘accepted’ science or philosophy, is dumped.

Franz Hartmann wrote biographies of Jakob Böhme and Paracelsus. He drew links between the past and present.

He was of the day (b.1838, d.1912) when doctors were theologians because in medicine, doctors encounter the unexplainable. And theologians deal all the time with those things unexplainable. So we end up with a theosophical trash can of unexplainables. And those things, the unexplainables, become the reason why we have faith.

As 2024 begins, do not forget to question your sources of knowledge.

As did CJ in Tangier Gardens, on sale, 75% off, til 2023 year’s end. Buy it @ Smashwords: https://bit.ly/3SIAfma