Hubris

19 May 2021

Tbilisi

The mountain bit me again. The last time it left a memory. This time it will leave a scar. PASSAGE. PAIN.

I cannot blame my body–but I can admit my body was not up to the task. Dr. Iriklee said to Beso about my rapid deterioration on the long, high altitude climb with the shepherds–50 kilometers of continuous climbing and descending extreme grades: “The shepherds who do this extreme journey all the time have bodies conditioned for the task. I suspect Pilippii’s body suffered the result of not being a shepherd.”

Iriklee didn’t say it exactly, not so eloquently. But that is what he said.

Just as you can travel with a bear but will never be a bear, you can never be a shepherd by traveling with a shepherd. Eventually the bear will eat you. With the shepherd it is the mountain that does the preying. And it ate me almost alive.

MOUNTAIN RESCUE. Unable to land, military chopper places one wheel against the alpine terrain as two mountain patrol soldiers (who had reached me by horseback earlier that day and laid coordinates for my extraction) held me, each of my arms around their necks, and crab walk me under blasts of dirt and air as a team of military rescuers come from the hovering machine for the hand off… and days and hours of pain and fear and sucking it up gave way to the realization someone had actually come for me–my prayer had been that by some miracle someone would dial up the military, for only they are capable of such a high altitude rescue.

And here they were. And when the rescuers grabbed me I obeyed and went limp and let them lay me into the basket and suddenly I was winched into the chopper and we were flying and the mountain was sitting indifferent as if it never tried or even wanted to hurt me. For it didn’t. It wasn’t. It is the mountain’s nature. It lives at the most outer mass of creation, like a moon. At the bottom of a sea, at the top of a mountain it is like visiting the furnace of creation. Men do not belong here–not without reason. And we suffer the consequence of our exploration.

PURPOSE. Does the… the shepherd goes to the mountain not because he wants the risk or because he likes the weather (though he does when it is pleasant because it is his paradise) or for the danger or the isolation or the hardship. The shepherd goes to the mountain because it is where the sheep must go. He goes because the world demands it of him and he obeys. The shepherd has a purpose for being on the bitter edge of earth. I do not.

I have dared to follow the shepherd to his mountain three times now and each time the mountain bit me. This time the bite could have been fatal.Until I began writing in my journal this morning I don’t think I had lowered my guard of self- protection. But when I dared to revisit these emotions something opened up in me and a thing poured out of me like it did six years ago on a boat with Noah and I cried. Like back then it shocked me. And I was a little embarrassed. Real crying, head in hands and water coming through fingers with snot.

I had almost cried when they hoisted me into the helicopter but my pride prevented the tears. Then not twenty minutes later the helicopter suddenly tilted and detoured into an adjacent alpine valley and landed at a derelict shepherd’s camp–this time rescuing a clearly desperate shepherd. Unstable, unable to walk, delirious. When they brought him in his ragged clothes and plastic sandals into the chopper he wept and I felt him and I was him and I looked at him and he–clearly not understanding I too had had just been rescued–looked into my eyes with a humility and gratefulness I may never see in a man’s eyes again. He raised his arms and his head as if to apologize or praise, I could not know, then he buried his face in his hands too destroyed to fight his sense of shame or gratefulness. I felt I was looking into a mirror of what life was trying to do for me–release me by force of all my pride.

The mountain is a wolf. It is a bear. It may allow you to live alongside it a while but you must never misunderstand your place. Even the shepherd does not belong there, though he has developed a certain conditioning for being there a while. In the end the mountain is the moon and the shepherd only an astronaut with a tiny artificial support system to sustain him. When that support is exhausted it requires a herculean effort to save him. And it rarely comes.

20 May 2021

Tbilisi

We grow on and out of things when there is soil, light, water. Good soil, some water, available light.

Across from the hotel a dilapidated apartment house, three floors, appears to have eight units. In the gutter at the high roofline plants point straight up like they intend to grow as tall as trees.

Yesterday I thought of Raymond Carver. Today I think of Wendell Berry. These men who are mostly unknown to the public and yet they bear the most profound influence in our time–at least in my own country.

My illness–whatever it is–continues. Last night a development for the worse. After dinner my stomach grew so bloated and painful I desperately tried to make myself vomit (unsuccessfully) and was in terrible pain from 10p till around 3am. At one point I contemplated phoning George to get me to the hospital.

I suspect I had food poisoning on top of existing ailment that was then acerbated by the new poison. The restaurant food was lukewarm and not properly prepared. I should have known better but I had an appetite for the first time in a week so I ate.

Slowly word is drifting about between friends about my mountain evacuation. So I have taken to copying and pasting responses to convey a more thorough picture while assuring them of my current state of well-being. Are they lies when you downplay the situation in order not to disturb people? Or perhaps I just don’t want to talk about it?

I told Sofia first. But I have not told any other family members. I feel it will be better for them if I can tell them the story later face to face and make some jokes. A difficult experience but I am ok, lots of butt jokes, ha ha sort of thing. But I suspect my family know better and worry and worry and worry. Do I hurt them more through silence?

Adam Will messaged me last night. He asked me directly if I felt it is a wake up call? If I should rethink continuing this kind of work?

Adam’s is a curious question. At first I was stung thinking Adam believes I am weak and incapable. I wanted to defend myself and list a lifetime of wild adventures few even dream of. Then my pride was checked. I know Adam cares for me and I let his question go into me.

The truth is I had that very thought on the mountain when I was praying for rescue. I was struck by the thought that I… I thought maybe I don’t want to come back to Tusheti–even by vehicle it is a risk to your life. I thought, maybe I was never built for the wilds even as I have tried my whole life to portray myself as a man built for outposts.

OUTPOST.

I think back to 2014 and I am stunned to realize that even now I am learning new information about that day we turned back at Abano Pass. After having now done the crossing on foot and in the time of year when Tusheti is a virtually inaccessible outpost I shudder to think what would have happened to Noah and I had we not retreated EXACTLY when we did. EXACTLY.

For now I know that within a hundred meters of where we called for retreat the shepherds were preparing to spill themselves over a cliff into that brutal bowl of which none of us could have climbed out–and this I now know for a fact is not an exaggeration. You cannot un-fall off a cliff–you cannot fall up a waterfall. The fact is the shepherd’s spring methodology of descent of the snow-smothered slopes is simply to throw the entire flock and horses and dogs and themselves over the edge and slide to the bottom (often losing horses in the processes–a gamble they have no choice but to make) and solider on. We had no idea how close we were to that action when we turned back. Literally it was already happening and we couldn’t even see it.

In our foolishness we likely would have followed them over thinking we could come back but would have then been faced with the reality of the long trek to Tusheti–the only option until the road is plowed and repaired (weeks, a month) that is so difficult in good weather, so long, through such a dangerous landscape along cliff falls and river gorges and across rotten spring ice and rotten summer glaciers collapsing and dragging mountains of debris into abyss valleys no one steps foot in. With NO possibility of rescue in any reasonable sense. If we succeeded in reaching Levani’s camp (it occurs to me I do not know where it is but I know it is past Badzgos, which adds even more fear to this memory) we would have been stranded there for weeks at least. And we had NO proper gear to protect us. I believe God saved us and until this year I didn’t even understand it.

What scares me is the unknown. And my pride. My pride, the she-devil. That thing in me has brought me to more edges than i know.

It now appears 2014 could–almost was!–have been a life-wrecking catastrophe for us.

Instead another catastrophe occurred, but only me; and only two weeks later when I returned to Haiti. Did God spare Noah a lesson only I needed to learn? The extreme humbling of being crippled.

So… Adam’s question. Was this new event a new grace? Was it a wake up call? Has God the Father been giving me nudges for years? Trying to teach me easy? How many times can a man cheat death? I insist this is not what I am doing but a long list of life events testifies otherwise. At sea. On mountains. In deadly weather more times than I can count–I used to run into, drive into deadly weather on principle. In dangerous lands and neighborhoods. How many guns have been pointed at my throat and temple? Why? What am I trying to prove?

I… I believe I have been trying to prove I am worthy, that I am the “real” man. But I am not. I am actually finicky, nervous, scared, afraid of heights, I don’t like discomfort. I prefer good fashion and a perfect bed. Good food. Lights.

So why all this performance? Why this lifetime of self-denial (eat what is put before you. Sleep where you lay. Wear what you can purchase in a market. Don’t ask for favors. Make no waves. Leave no impression. Disappear. Be invisible and little).

Perhaps the wrong question. For God is not caught off guard. God is not unaware nor surprised. God can and will use everything in our life for His good purpose–if we let Him.

Could it be both my pride and grace? Do they work together in Him?

Father, I prayed in 2006 in Searcy for you to send me. Anywhere to do anything to work any job. To be nobody. To be totally silent if necessary. To put down pen and camera.

So in 2006 you sent me to Haiti. You also put the pen and camera back in my hand. And you have provided for me ever since.

I pray again: Father, here I am, send me. To the brokenhearted.

To the imprisoned.

To the sick.

To the lonely. To the naked. To the hungry. To myself?

My photos and my words, born as they may be from selfish desire seeking fame, are Your’s to use in every way You desire for Your Kingdom. I know Your Kingdom is the only real kingdom to search for–the Great City over that timeless horizon–the end of the perspective. The point of it all, quite literally.

“You say, you’ll give me, a highway with no one on it.

A treasure just to look upon it. All the riches in the night. You say, you’ll give me eyes in a moon of blindness.

A river in a time of dryness.

A harbor in the tempest.” –Bono (u2

And you have.

So now take me and any little thing I have and make a song for Yourself. For Your pleasure. Use me for Your glory alone and forgive me for all my secret desire and lust for my own glory.

21 May 2021

Tbilisi

Audrey would have been here by now. With Besso. Probably already in Telavi or Lechuri (had I remained on the mountain–IN the mountains. In Tusheti. And I confess I am glad I did not remain). Or she would be here with me at Brim having coffee.

The world turns. Plans are illusions. Especially big plans. Especially when big plans appear to succeed–that is the biggest illusion.

It is a grace when our plans crumble. It teaches us the end of things even before they begin. It prepares us to listen, readjust, fine tune our ears. Our true ears, the ones listening for our character–and the Character Maker.

But it isn’t easy, all this readjusting. I don’t have a metaphor to define the nature of the dynamic. But I know it is a very special grace on my life that I have been prevented all the big successes I wanted and still long for. Had I received them I would not be sitting at this table here in Tbilisi this morning in May waiting on God the Father to give me my next assignment. I would be somewhere “big” talking about “big” things to “big” people in “big” rooms with even bigger ambitions and bigger plans and I would believe their praise of me and I would no longer remember. I would not remember anything.

I would not remember the dust and the long road. I would not remember the wind and how the wind sings–oh the voice of the wind! Pure. Violent. Sweet. Cleansing. Rejuvenating. Jarring. Course-shifting. Wave-generating wind. I would not remember the feel of a horse’s neck after a race across the Khaketi lowlands–carrying on it’s back a shepherd without saddle or stirrup– the two as one. Pulsing sweat of power. Gleaming in the golden hour light. The beast of power. It’s power coming to rest. It’s body a signal. It could kill me with one stomp but it lets me pet its neck because it knows its power and it believes I will be its friend, despite us not sharing a common language. Can any man truly hear a horse or tell the horse a man’s name?

Would I remember Tato and his rusty spiked collar of defense, his body armor? The polar dog- bear warrior, descendant of warriors. A true warrior breed for five hundred years, or five thousand? Who can trace their blood so purely as a Georgian Mountain Dog? No I would not remember Tato or his mother Maro, my second protector, or his grandmother Pato, my first protector. I would only remember Klieg lights and the crowd chanting my name asking for a photo op.

I longed for it. I daydreamed as a boy of my hometown holding a parade in my honor. The ten- year-old wonder boy! Praise the Father the parade never came.

Because now I remember. And slowly I am developing an ear for things that matter. A man in a village in Lechuri, Georgia whose trust and kindness has thwarted all his success and now pours his ambition into raising two grandchildren in the “ways of true life.” Lui.

Because Lui is listening and because I can hear a little bit now I can stop. Right there in nowhere village in nowhere town in nowhere country with nowhere man and a portal opens up on the invisible that was before time and always will be. Lui is as small as an atom with all the potential of an atom’s power to hold the world together or to split it apart.

Because big things were prevented me I am prepared to listen to when I hear Lui laugh and I can recognize his laugh is something praise will never give you.

We become too big to see the truth. We outgrow the room of our eyes. Our eyes close from fat.

I want to be little. I want to be nobody. I want to be just like You, Jesus, when you dared to enter your own creation. A little, fragile baby. Nursed by a biology of your own eternal imagination. Placed in time, You were never in a hurry. Everything in its time. For time is ultimately an illusion–a day as a thousand, a thousand as a day. I want to be like You, Jesus, who befriended foul-mouthed fishermen, tax thieves, doctors. You did not want to be famous. You wanted to be Who You–Your own Father (such a mystery)–wanted You to be: A Portal for the whole of creation to pass through, a cleansing. Your blood (what mystery! The ancients knew it and trusted it. The voodooists know it is true. But our “scientists” insist these are silly superstitions. Carl Jung knows better) is what cleanses the universe and me.

Do not ever allow me to be big. Do not ever grant me my desire for praise.

Yes, feed me! Even allow me to feed others. Help me earn so I can be free to give and create. But protect me from my worst ways and my basest possibilities to believe in the celebrity the world will want to make of me. Fools all who believe the crowd. Protect me from my own possibility of the fool.

LIONS. BEARS. LAMBS. GUARDIANS.

We require guardians.

Andrew Baker’s mother made a joke that “Philip keeps his guardians busy.” I suspect this is true. How fortunate to have such guardians.

I love the guardian dogs of Georgia the most. I don’t know if these creatures are a national treasure but I think they are. They are to me.

Slowly I learn they are both less dangerous than I had believed and more dangerous! I watched the dogs attack men on the mountain–just for daring to pass though the flock on horseback (because where else can you pass on that lip of death called a “road”?). Moorah attacked a horseman whose eyes widened with terror as Moorah’s sudden attack knocked him from his mount and onto his back defenseless in a snow bank. He was a big, fit man in his thirties and in his clear fear he recovered with soldier’s speed drawing out a large stick and beating and kicking at Moorah, finally landing a blow that sent Moorah crying.

And yet at the same time Moorah came to me, leaning into me, body to body (though never completely). As if to communicate he had me in his care. Coming up from behind me, deliberately pushing his giant, wolf body into my hip. Holding the pressure as we walked steps together, never looking at me. Then moving on. Such strange communication.

Also I learn more about the freedom of the dogs.

In the lowland we met Toila. Lasha said she would give birth in two days. And on the day she was to give birth, as we climbed the mountain, Toila was just no longer there. She stayed behind.

I asked about her and Lasha actually seemed surprised by her absence and asked Badzgo about her. Then he shrugged and said, “She go.” and pointed back down the mountain.

Did you just stop? Did she join one of the flocks close following?

A little while later we passed through a flock guarded by particularly “angry” dogs, as the shepherds refer to them. The dogs’ shepherds seemed equally hard and unfriendly. Every dog wore the spiked collar, laid together on an embankment and growled.

Lasha said, “Bellado!” having recognized the once tender fighter I myself loved and almost risked my life to fight alongside in 2018; a dog that just one day left–stayed behind, Lasha had told me when I arrived on this new migration. It appears the kind Bellado has been conscripted into a new pack of cruel protectors. Bizarre.

Then a few hours later we passed a large, beige puppy on a rocky outcrop yelping and crying in desperation. I was struck by its immobile poster. It just sat on the rotten rock at eye’s height and cried out into the abyss of everything and anything and nothing. Like it was blind to us but hoping we could see. Not daring risk to follow or attach itself. Nothing is so totally alone than when alone among a crowd. ALONE. LEFT BEHIND. ABANDONED. Will he be conscripted into the evil pack too? Will he die alone on the rock, cut off, cut out, somehow deemed not capable or strong or brave or mean or cruel enough?

How have I lived so long with kindness in me in this screwed up cruel world? Why have I survived as the clever orphan?

If the dogs are with you they are expected to work. But they are free to leave you. Or maybe they are free until they are placed under the collar. The armor of the slave dog.

Slave Dog: Mona Dzaghlebi.

The puppy crying particularly grabbed me. At high altitude movement is life. There is no time to stop for help. I felt Lasha and Badzgo may have considered intervening because they reduced speed very briefly, foot off pedal, but then sped on–like they wanted to reach out and try, just try this time to grab a passing comet but remembering the reality of comets and space and reality. I was struck because I felt like that puppy–in need of help in a place that requires you either save yourself or die.

How do you save yourself when you have never had a father to teach you survival?

So when I was faltering a day later after a 50km climb I knew the situation I was in–I would receive no help by crying out, certainly not by stopping. This wasn’t a bus I just exit. I knew my only hope was to push on to reach base camp. Up into the death zone, ironically, was the only salvation. Not a single other option. But for all my pushing I understood something about myself in that puppy. I wanted to stop and beg for mercy. I was beyond all limits in myself and I desperately longed for help. But I knew there was nothing coming. Not then.