45
" So there I lie on the plateau, under me the central cord of fire from which was thrus this mass of plutonic rock, over me, blue air, and between the fired of the rock and the fire of the sun, scree, soil, and water, moss, grass, flower and tree, insect, wind,rain, snow-the total mountain. Slowly I have found my way in. "
― Nan Shepherd , The Living Mountain
55
" The eye sees what it didn’t see before, or sees in a new way what it had already seen. These moments come unpredictably, yet governed, it would seem, by a law whose working life is dimly understood. They come to me most often while waking out of outdoor sleep, gazing tranced at the running of water and listening to its song, and most of all after hours of steady walking, with the long rhythm of motion sustained until motion is felt, not merely known by the brain, as the ‘still centre’ of being. walking thus, hour after hour, the senses keyed, one walks the flesh transparent. "
― Nan Shepherd , The Living Mountain