Rheims Cernunnos
Gallo-Roman relief, 1st century CE
Paganistan: Notes from the Secret Commonwealth
In Which One Midwest Man-in-Black Confers, Converses & Otherwise Hob-Nobs with his Fellow Hob-Men (& -Women) Concerning the Sundry Ways of the Famed but Ill-Starred Tribe of Witches.
Ban 'Everest' Tourism Now
Do mountains have rights?
As a pagan, I believe that they do.
The ancestors, in their wisdom, understood that some places must simply be “set aside.” This is the price that we must expect to pay for the permission to “use” other places: that some should be left to themselves.
Surely the highest mountain in the world merits such respect.
In indigenous lore, the peak of Chomolungma—the Mountain Mother of the World—was preeminently one such place: the residence of a goddess, sacrosanct, in her sanctity forbidden to humanity.
For 65 years now, she has instead been polluted with the excrement (tons of it!), garbage, and even the frozen corpses, of climbers.
If hubris has a tag line, “conquering 'Everest'” must be it. No one has ever conquered, or ever will conquer, the Mountain Mother of the World. Rather, in her ruth (mercy), she has permitted those who profane her to depart alive.
Increasingly, now, she withholds her ruth. Should anyone be surprised?
I call upon all pagans of good conscience to honor the rights of the world's highest mountain.
Ban "Everest" tourism now.
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