Message 16 in Discussion   From: Chu'a Sent: 5/9/2003 10:46 PM -The Deepest Mountain- There is a spirit deep in the laurel thickets of bottoms and hollows and walking the trails of those high grounds, along ridges and saddles misting skyward like plumbs of smoking clouds settled to rest around places like Old Baldy and the Clingman's Dome. When seen from afar it's never a question from where comes their name. Smokies. But to those who know, it is not smoke rising skyward from the dark and misty places, to join with the sunlight for a time, before going back into the home of their mountain once more. Shades of quiet and stillness and sheltered places of deep dark misty hollows make this mountain, that always looks to the north as it faces what is now known as Tennessee. When you go to the top, then down the other side into North Carolina, land of the Great Cherokee Nation, you only find part left of what used to be. Hid in the mountain, so never whisk away to barren lands unknown, on their long walk finding what end awaited the end of their trail of tears. You discover another side of a mountain facing to the south and so different from that dark and quiet place on this side of the highest ridge dividing slopes. Just as those who never walked that lonesome trail of heartbreak and sadness are somehow different for never having left their own spirits covered in the dust of that byway. Their spirits are tall. Not different from never having been touched by a sadness running much too full blown deep through a people mostly lost and buried from walking and carrying kin both sick and dying. As well as carrying their dead along so none would ever be left alone, forlorn in a place not known to them, or home to them, somewhere out along and alone and alone and alone on that fateful hateful trail. Carried along until it was finally a thing impossible to do because the dead began to out number those still clinging to life's threads, two to one, then more. Then more. So many times more. Hush, stand quiet in this mountain. Feel spirit rush deep, no question need voice to ask who, communing with spirit standing quiet in reverence for those who have found their way home from that most hated place out along that trail without hope. There is spirit strong in this mountain, real as the mountain to any with spirit to feel. This spirit is tall. I am Chu'a -standing in the spirit of beauty- these are my words