Stars on the Earth: Domes and Stargates, and How to Interact with Them

By Richard Leviton

Discover the wonderful secret the Earth holds for us-that the stars of the galaxy live on our planet.

Holograms of high-magnitude stars over holy mountains. Physical travel to other planets through stargates on the Earth's surface. Near instantaneous transportation across the planet through quick-way portals.

Outrageous science fiction or sober geomantic fact?

Earth Mysteries researcher Richard Leviton takes you on a wild tour of three geomantic features of our planet and reveals that what science fiction has dreamed the Earth in fact offers us. Stars on the Earth combines scholarship, clairvoyance, and field experience with the latest discoveries of geology and astrophysics and the timeless insights of the world's myths to open the planetary door to the stars.

It's all part of the Earth's unsuspected but staggeringly rich endowment as a designer planet. Our planet was precisely designed and implemented for us, and it's equipped with a visionary geography that mirrors features of the galaxy and Heavens.

Why are so many of the Earth's mountains said to be holy, producing visions and encounters with the "gods?" They all have canopies of light called domes, each transmitting the presence of a galactic star. What is the geomantic origin of the Bermuda Triangle? Two dysfunctional stargates. If working properly, they and the Earth's other two million stargates could transport us rapidly to other planets. Is there a way to travel quickly across the planet without using cars, airplanes, boats, or trains? Yes, and it's called a traversable wormhole, and the Earth has thousands of them awaiting our discovery and use. Come join the tour of a planet you've never seen before: our own star-infused Earth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Aug 18, 2006
• ISBN: 9780595851454

Richard Leviton

Richard Leviton is the author of 16 books, including many on myths and the global geomantic landscape, notably The Galaxy on Earth, The Emerald Modem, Signs on the Earth, and Encyclopedia of Earth Myths. He is the director/founder of the Blue Room Consortium, a cosmic mysteries think tank based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Since 1984, he has been interacting with and describing the Earth?s Light body and through workshops facilitating in others directed visionary encounters with the planet.

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Copyright © 2006 by Richard Leviton

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Contents

Introduction

Domes

The Geomantic Aspect Of Mountains

History And Purpose Of The Domes

The Dome Caps Array

Specialized Dome Functions

Zodiac Domes And Universe Domes

Stargates

From Earth Out To The Stars

Quick Ways, Or Traversable Wormholes

Afterword

About The Author

The Blue Room Consortium

End Notes

To my readers—

In the spirit of excitement, wonder, research, questioning, discovery, application, and the joy of knowing, and especially to Robert Ayres, Chris Ayres, David Coverdale, Cindy Coverdale, Judy Edinburg, Germaine Weiss, Judy Lewis, Frank Ward, and all the others I am yet to meet and thanks.

Introduction 

The Earth holds a wonderful secret in store for us. The stars of the galaxy live on our planet. We can access them merely by walking across the landscape. We can have visionary encounters with the actual celestial beings whose bodies are the stars.

Yes, this all sounds fantastic if not improbable. The context for these possibilities is the fact that the Earth is not what we think it is. Or perhaps we don’t think about the Earth that much at all, or perhaps only in the context of environmental problems, greenhouse gas emissions, climate change, and planetary warming trends. I’m referring to something behind these layers of the Earth, something forgotten. Not forgotten by all, but largely by people in the West. What has been forgotten? That the Earth has another aspect to it, something that connects us to the galaxy.

I use the term visionary geography to describe this other aspect. It connotes a terrain of holy sites, numinous nodes, places that invite pilgrimage and deliver visions. Were you to see past the physical features of the landscape, the hills, lakes, mountains, as well as the great diversity and abundance of stone structures built by humans to mark the spot of sacred sites in the landscape, or to use a more specific term, geomantic high points—geomantic refers to energies of the Earth—you might start becoming aware of a whole other layer to the planet, a landscape packed with Light temples. There they all are, just beyond the facade of the physical features.

A Light temple is a structured, interactive space in which the prime building material is light. These are the kinds of places you might visit in dreams. These are the kinds of places refered to in all the world’s myths as the residences of the gods, as mystical, evanescent, hyperreal locales where strange and remarkable things happen. People behold the Holy Grail; they fight off dragons and collect their treasures; get deliciously enfolded in the wings of angels; talk to august spiritual teachers; and more.

It is a very big picture, but to summarize it in a sentence: the structures and locales of the spiritual worlds and subtle planes of the galaxy are all copied on Earth. This copy is a vast interactive terrain meant to facilitate our full awakening to the mystery and wonder of human identity. Not only are all the spiritual worlds and celestial beings inside us, part of the essential constitution or spiritual architecture of the human, but they are also all out there as a subtle, responsive, geomantic environment. What is inside us is matched by what is outside, and both are mirrors of what is up there, or further in there, or further out there: the original pattern.

I like the phrase As above (the original spiritual worlds), so below (all of it inside us), and in the middle too (all of it in the Earth’s geomantic landscape). This equivalency across the levels enables us to creatively interact with the Earth and thereby the Heavens. The details of this three-leveled pattern are enormous; my current research, after 22 years, brings the tally to 115 different types of Light temples, all of which have multiple copies. This book, then, introduces three of these geomantic features, and touches on a half dozen or so more that have a functional relationship with them.

The geomantic features I cover in Stars on the Earth have to do with stars. The virtual presence of stars and their implicit higher intelligences right out in the landscape all around us. The possibility of having realtime visionary interactions with these star-beings. The possibility, unbelievably, of actually going to the stars. The possibility of moving very quickly across the surface of the Earth using starlight.

That’s the deep-end summary of what this book offers. Here’s the view from the shallow end of the swimming pool. Ever wonder why a mountain is considered holy? Why people living near it say the gods live there, or once did, in glorious estates to which occasionally a few men and women might get invited for a brief tour around? The answer is this particular mountain has a dome over it, a canopy of celestial light that recapitulates the conditions of a paradaisal realm in which mountains are masses of light populated by all sorts of blissful spiritual beings. Ever wonder if any of the really outstanding ideas from science fiction like travel to other planets have any reality? The answer is yes, they do, and the planetary travel bit is made possible by stargates. Ever wish you didn’t have to use cars, trains, buses, boats, or airplanes to get around? The answer is you don’t, and the solution is terrestrial traversable wormholes.

Domes, stargates, and traversable wormholes are the main geomantic topics I cover in Stars on the Earth. I use both myths and science, astrophysics and geology, to help explain them, and I show you ways to interact with these previously unsuspected features of our planet. Along the way, I distinguish three types of domes—one for stars, one for holograms of the galaxies (called zodiac domes), and one that mimics supermassive black holes (called universe domes). I explain function and origin, to the extent I have figured this out. Basically, the book is an excursion into explaining aspects of cosmological structure as they are imprinted on the Earth in the form of subtle geomantic features. The three features profiled here—domes, stargates, traversable wormholes—are each aspects of the fundamental structure of the galaxy and its subtle body called the spiritual worlds.

Why is it important to know about the Earth at this level? Because we need to understand how our planet works. With the chronic environmental crisis and the looming uncertainty of global climate change, we are beginning to understand some aspects of planetary meteorological systems and the effect of our industrialized civilization upon them. But that’s only part of the picture. There is much more to the Earth than what we ordinarily see, and it is increasingly important we start seeing it. In simple terms, let’s say the planet has a subtle anatomy and physiology that actually drive all the physical systems and their parameters and perturbations. This subtle anatomical and physiological realm is actually antecedent to the physical world and thus it is the place to go if we want to effectively balance and improve planetary conditions.

It may seem paradoxical, but to truly feel grounded at a bodily level while living on Earth we need to be grounded into its Light reality. That’s why some working knowledge of the planet’s vast visionary geography is now becoming essential.

This is the third in the series called Primers on Earth’s Geomantic Reality. It’s a primer because mostly it’s a concentrated introduction to a complex subject. I bring in the Earth because the features are distributed across the globe so the entire planet is implicated in their reality and application. Geomantic is an old British term with different nuances; mine is that it is the discipline of figuring out Earth’s energy patterns and how to use them. Reality means higher or deeper reality, something a bit beyond the comfort zone of our consensus reality yet very much a planetary truth.

How do I know any of this? I was introduced to this secret, geomantic side to the planet in the mid-1980s as part of a concentrated three-year seminar conducted by the angelic order called the Ofanim. They are great teachers and continue to show me new things. I field-tested everything through hundreds of geomantic outings and visionary innings. This enabled me to build a comprehensible (if fabulous) empirical base of experiences, visions, mystical encounters, and field information.

I did a great deal of standard scholarly research, looking for parallels, equivalencies, and ways to describe what I had seen. I found a great deal of this in the world’s myths. Stories are an excellent way to share esoteric information based on visions, and they’re also an excellent way to preserve them for millennia for future needs. To verify, confirm, validate, and extend my findings, I used my own clairvoyance. This enabled me to systematically research at a more subtle level the whole pattern of the Earth’s visionary geography. It gave me access to special tutorials offered me by the Ofanim and other celestial world colleagues.

It also made it possible for me to share some of this wonderful visionary material with others in workshops by way of direct, facilitated expeditions to some of these Light temples. The proof, ultimately, is up to you, as it was for me. I offer a number of meditative exercises in the book to give you a chance to visit the inside. When you experience some or all of what I’m pointing to you’ll know it’s there. Then comes the fun part: we can revisit these locales together.

Not only is it fun, because then more people are seeing the Earth a little more clearly, but it enables us to start fulfilling something humans are supposed to be doing but aren’t: regular human interaction with the Earth’s many Light temples is also a kind of planetary maintenance of the visionary geography pattern. The Earth’s subtle body needs maintenance by humans to keep everything in working order.

Further, our maintenance is best performed in concert with the angelic realm and in cooperation with the realm of the Nature Spirits. So you see, getting acquainted with some aspects of the Earth’s geomantic pattern is just the beginning. Here’s the map, now, let’s use the map to go to this locale. Getting there is actually part of the maintenance. It is a

very economical, efficiently thought-out system. In fact, that’s another key fact: the Earth is a designer planet. It was made for us. Thought up, designed, executed, and put in play for us by the higher spiritual worlds. Why? So we could receive the full gift of the Light from the Supreme Being while in bodies.

The Earth’s visionary geography is a complex receptacle for the spiritual Light. We go to different kinds of geomantic sites to get some of that Light. When we get the Light, it automatically feeds the Earth, because the Earth needs the Light too. When we have the Light, so does everything else in Creation living on the Earth: dogs, cats, flowers, trees, rivers, lakes, puddles, insects, bears, birds—everything. This book offers you ways to go get some Light from the stars templated on the Earth. You’ll feel better, because the Light is a food and it helps us remember why we’re here, and the Earth will feel better, because it is a living spiritual organism too, often called Gaia, in honor of its master residential landscape angel, and it needs the food.

Part One

DOMES 

Chapter 1

The Geomantic Aspect of Mountains 

The Spiritual Origin of the Planet’s

Holy Peaks

The Earth Abounds with Holy Mountains

A common theme that runs throughout the world’s myths is the primacy of holy mountains. Nearly every culture whose landscape includes mountains attributes numinosity and primordial importance to certain mountains. Mountains are the home of the gods, of a people’s sole creator god, of certain specialized deities, or of treasuries or temples of the gods. Frequently, holy mountains are the sites of revelation, epiphanies, theophanies, celestial visitations or transports, inspiration, madness, or encounters with gods. Somehow humans slip more easily into mystical experiences on holy mountains, and the gods (or God) more easily reveal themselves at these places of high spirit. Moses received the tablets of the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai; people who spend a night on the windy lookout of Wales’ Cader Idris will find themselves the next morning either poets or mad. Holy mountains have effects.

Among the many examples of holy mountains and their attributions we have Mount Kenya, a 17,000-foot volcano and Africa’s second highest peak, in Kenya, which is the residence of Mugai, the god who created humans including the first Kikuyu tribesman, Gikuyu. The Kikuyu call this peak Kere Nyaga, Mountain of Brightness. In Tanzania, Ol Doinyo Lengai, a 10,000-foot active volcano, is the home of Engai, for the Masai the one and only God, as well as for a spiritual being called Khambegeu who once created a golden age of prosperity. The Bantu call this peak Mogongo jo Mugwe, meaning Mountain of God. How about Mount Ida: Zeus, chief of the Olympian gods, the great god of the dark storm cloud, up there on Ida [in today’s Turkey], gazing down on the whole expanse of Troy [and the Trojan War]! said Homer in The Iliad.¹ Ida was reserved exclusively for Zeus’ use.

Gunung Agung (Great Mountain), the 10,308-foot sacred peak of Bali, is the home of Mahadewa, Great God of Gunung, and the site of numerous temples and shrines. Mount Fuji in Japan is the home of Ko-no-hana-saku-ya-hime, The Princess Who Maketh the Blossoms of the Trees to Flower; she is also called Sangen, Asama, or O-ana-mochi (Possessor of the Great Hole or Crater) and is the volcano’s divine guardian. Adam’s Peak in Sri Lanka is the home of Samanala Kanda, one of the country’s four guardian deities. Table Mountain in Capetown, South Africa, is the home of Umlindi Wemingizimu, The Watcher of the South, one of four giants appointed by the Earth-goddess Djobela to guard the cardinal directions (possibly for all of Africa) and to assume the form of a mountain. The Rainmaker of the North, Turquoise Boy, and Yellow Corn Girl live at New Mexico’s Mount Taylor, known to the Navajo as Turquoise Mountain because once the gods fastened it to the sky and Earth with a turquoise-embedded flint knife.

The meanings of the names of mountains alone, without knowing the myths associated with them, are evocative: Cho Oyo (Tibet) means Turquoise Goddess; Annapurna (Nepal) means Goddess of the Harvests; Manaslu (Nepal) translates as Mountain of the Spirit; Nanga Parbat (Pakistan) is Naked Mountain to the Urdu but Maneater or The Mountain of the Devil to the Sherpas; and the Tarngat Mountains (Quebec and Labrador, Canada) come from the Inuktitat term, Tarngat, for Land of Spirits. See Table 1 for more examples of holy peaks, their deities, and the celestial activities attributed to these sites.

Name of Mountain Deities in Residence Activities Performei

Table 1

Holy Mountains, Their Deities and Activities

A great number of mountains around the world have names indicating white. Jebel Liban, which is the Arabic name for the Lebanon Mountains, means Mountains White as Milk. Mauna Kea, a volcano on the island of Hawaii, means White Mountain. Aconcagua in Argentina, the tallest mountain in the western hemisphere, means White Mountain; intriguingly, it also translates from the Quechuan as Vantage Point from which To Contemplate God. Koma Kulshan, the Nooksak Indian name for Mount Baker in Washington State, means White, Steep Mountain. The Caucasus Mountains in Russia mean either Snow White or Ice-Glittering. Dhaulagiri, a 26,811-foot peak in Nepal, means White Mountain, from the Sanskrit dhavala (white) and giri (mountain).

The temptation is to take the references to white literally and understand it to mean snow, but I believe this sells it all short. Snow, ice, milk, and whiteness connote the celestial Light the mountains emanate. The meaning of the name Changabang, a 22,520-foot peak in India, translated from the Garhwali is Shining Mountain, but also, and more deeply, It Gives Devi Light, Devi being a name for the goddess. Thus snow, ice, and milk references not only point to the mountain as a source of Light, but to the Light-emitters, the deities present, as scholar Robert Julyan suggests. Indeed, the universality of the tendency to find God in the mountains suggests that the profound impact mountains have on the human psyche is a deeper emotion than we have imagined, one that transcends culture or locality. In his survey of the etymology of 300 mountain names, Julyan finds that everywhere mountains represent sacred zones where gods and people meet.²

The Navajo say that every mountain, especially the sacred cardinal ones that bound Navajo Nation in the American Southwest, has an inner form or holy beings inside it known as bii’istiin, Those That Stand within Them. We can certainly get a vivid sense of that by studying Table 1. These gods are the chieftains of the peaks, and the mountains are their hogans, or homes. Examples of bii’istiin are Talking God, Rocky Crystal Boy, and Rock Crystal Girl. Peruvians echo this perception, using the word apu (chief or lord) to refer to resident mountain spirits. The apus (also called wamanis, aukis, achachilas, and mallkus) live in

palaces concealed within holy mountains, and they have hierarchies of subordinates to help them fulfill their tasks. Apus must be respected for if angered, the mountain deities and their retinues of spirits can wreak havoc on the people who live in the valleys below them, destroying their crops with barrages of hail.³ Peruvians believe the apus control or at least strongly affect the weather; when suitably appeased by humans, the mountain deities can function as warlike protectors of agriculture and animals.⁴

Here is another protector nuance: The Altai Mountains that border Russia and Kazakhstan are the home of the Chief Oriot, the Master or Spirit of the range. His traditional role was to protect everyone living in the vicinity, a people known as the Oriots; he departed, but promised to return when a glacier on Belukha Mountain, the highest peak in the Altai range, shifted its position. He would either send or be sent by the White Burkhan, a Buddha-like messianic figure in white on a white horse who would herald a world revival and the rise of Burkhanism (White Faith).⁵

Not only do the mountain deities live inside the peaks, meaning, in another mystical dimension accessed through the physical mountain, but in some cases, the mountains originally were these deities themselves. Table 1 presents examples of this divine petrification: Mount Govardhana of India originally was the god Govardhana; Table Mountain in South Africa was the giant Umlindi Wemingizimu who was turned into this huge mass of stone by Djobela, the one-eyed Earth goddess; Mount Cook or Aoraki (Cloud-Piercer) in New Zealand was once four giant brothers; Aoraki and his three brothers were petrified and their canoe became the South Island.

We get a related and intriguing reference from Native Americans in the Cascade Range of Washington State that once mountains were people. The Klickitat and Yakima Indians tell a story of Mount Adams, which they call Pahto. When the Sun was a man, they say, he had five wives, and they were all mountains, including Mount Adams, Mount Rainier, Mount St. Helens, and two others. Sun talked to his wives every morning, but Mount Adams grew jealous of the attention the others got. She broke off the high heads of the two peaks Sun talked to before her, and she seized their wildlife for her own slopes.

Later, one of the other wives took revenge and knocked off Pahto’s peak. Then the Great Spirit intervened. He made a new head for Pahto in the form of a big white eagle and his son, a red eagle. The Great Spirit placed both eagles on the top of Pahto to be this mountain’s new head. This new head was called Quoh Why-am-mah, the Great White Eagle sent down from the Land Above. All this took place before humans lived in this area or possibly anywhere on the Earth.

With the Great White Eagle in place, Pahto became a powerful Law, the Yakima storytellers say. He was full of wisdom and watched the world and its doings. The Great Spirit sent him two more eagles to watch all parts of the Earth, to visit all places, and to see everything everywhere. They were called San-we Tlah, the Speaker, who sat to the right of Great White Eagle and facing north, and Kay-no Klah, the Overseer, who sat to his left, facing south. They watch everywhere, go everywhere. Flying all over the world, they report to White Eagle all that is being done.⁶ Great White Eagle always looks directly up to the Great Maker.

The British clairvoyant Wellesley Tudor Pole described Glastonbury Tor in Somerset (as seen in an after-death state channeled to Cynthia Sandys) as a center of power populated by the old great Devic beings… radiant and magnificent in all the ancient beauty of mind and power dwelling in the smoke-blue atmosphere of the Tor. He also reported that the apricot light of Christ’s aura grew and blended with the auric colors and Devic beings there so that the two rays formed into a most astonishing pattern, resembling a huge flower with tendrils reaching out in all directions. He said the Christ enveloping the Devas on the Tor with softening love rays was not due to the presence of Glastonbury Abbey, once one of England’s foremost ecclesiastical institutions, but almost in spite of it.⁷

Amnye Machen, a 20,610-foot peak in eastern Tibet, is the palace of Gesar of Ling, the hero of the national epic of Tibet and Mongolia and essentially an Eastern version of the Celtic King Arthur; Gesar’s sword is deposited inside the mountain awaiting his eventual return to collect it when he becomes King of Shambhala.⁸ Machen Pomra is the mountain’s warrior god and protector; his mountain palace is described as a giant square crystal whose base is buried deep in the Earth and which has a spire that reaches into the ethereal realm of the Sun and Moon. Machen Pomra is a horseman wearing brilliant golden armor, a spear in one hand, a vessel of jewels in the other; he’s accompanied by 360 affiliate deities occupying the neighboring peaks.

Remembering the Time When Mountains Were Masses of Light

Not only are prominent mountains identified as the abode of deities and the epicenter of formative events in the world, but the names given to them in various cultures also indicate their degree of numinosity and spiritual charge. The Kikuyu name for Mount Kenya, Kere Nyaga, Mountain of Brightness, is typical of this. In most cases the names or epithets given to holy mountains speak of great brightness, radiance, luminosity, even, in the case of Mount Meru, the cosmic mountain of Buddhist tradition, call it a shining mountain, an unsurpassed mass of energy.⁹ Here the mass, or material, densified, and stony aspect of a mountain is secondary, superceded by the perception of its fantastic intensity of light.

Arunachala, the holy peak of Shiva in southern India, means Hill of Light or Holy Fire Hill. Haleakala, a volcano in Maui, means House of the Sun. The T’ien Shan range in Central Asia means Mountains of Heaven. Annapurna, a Himalayan peak in Nepal, means, in Sanskrit, She Who Is Filled with Food or Goddess Rich in Sustenance. Mount Fuji in Japan comes from the Ainu word for Fire or Fire Deity. In Greece, Mount Athos, or as it is known in Greek, Ashion Oros, means Holy Mountain. Mont Blanc in the Swiss Alps means The White Mountain. The name of the Altai Mountains that border Russia and Kazakhstan derive from the Turkish Alytau or Altay, which means Gold (at) Mount (tau); in Mongolian, the range is called Altain-ula, The Mountains of Gold. Jasna Gora, a sacred hill in the Polish town of Czestochowa, means Shining Mountain, and in Tanzania, Ol Doinyo Lengai means Mountain of God. Light, fire, sun, food, whiteness, shiningness, heaven, god—you see where all these qualities are pointing, to the mountain as a place of light.

In the etymology of Mount Ushi-darena in the Mount Alborz Range near Adarbaijan in Iran we see the aspect of light and wisdom keenly revealed. Ushi (from ush) means to shine or to illuminate such as with consciousness of the divine; darena (from dar) means to support or to sustain. So the name is translated as Support of Divine Consciousness or Sustainer of Divine Wisdom. It was so named because here Zarathustra attained illumination and received the esoteric knowledge from Ahura-Mazda, the highest god who is also credited with having created it. Similarly, Mount Asnavant, in the same area (today’s Mount Ushenai), is the seat of Adar Gushasp, the Sacred Fire, but Fire meaning universal etheric energy.¹⁰ It also connotes the Xvarnah, a Persian mystical word for Divine Glory. Zarathustra is said to have meditated here and gained the divine will and fire to go out and teach.

The Ramayana, one of India’s prime spiritual epics, presents Mount Chitrakuta as more a numinous mass of light than a physical mountain. The mountain is sacred and beautiful, pure and pleasant, the favored retreat of great rishis (sages and seers). Even to behold the peak from a distance produces happiness and frees the mind from illusion. Numerous ascetics, after meditating on this mountain and living past one hundred years, have ascended to Heaven in an embodied state from Chitrakuta Mountain, the legends say. The mountain’s physical attributes, such as its glades of elephants and deer, the abundant supply of edible roots and fruit trees, the rivers, waterfalls and gorges, a sage told Rama, who was contemplating living in this delightful, fortunate, and ravishing retreat for awhile, would fill his heart with joy.¹¹

Later, Rama himself extols the wonders of this mountain to his consort, Sita. Many of its peaks are radiant with silver, others with gold, madder, or yellow hues, he said; they sparkle like precious stones, shimmer like quicksilver, or resemble flowers or crystals. The Kinnaras (divine beings with human bodies and foliated bird tails), besotted with love, divert themselves on the mountain’s plateaus. The herbs growing on its slopes look like points of fire and sparkle with radiance. Some of the rocks on this mountain resemble mansions and some look like parks, and overall, the mountain is more beautiful and ravishing than many celestial cities, parks, and their gardens.¹²

Rama declared that Chitrakuta looked like an elephant with ichor (a god’s blood) flowing from its forehead. In its physical beauty, its abundance of mild-mannered wildlife and vegetation, and its sublime, even ecstatic, effect on consciousness, surely Chitrakuta Mountain is more than any mountain as we know them today. Its essence is heavenly and celestial—desirable to visit, yes, but clearly not something of this Earth.

Elsewhere in the Ramayana we are introduced to that foremost of mountains, Arishta. Precious metals were scattered everywhere about its surface, resembling eyes; the sound of its waters rushing in torrents was like the chanting of the Vedas; its tall trees gave the mountain the appearance of a giant with upraised arms; numerous enlightened adepts and celestial beings frequented its slopes. This mighty hill which had innumerable caves, measured, unbelievably, forty miles across and thirty miles high.

Here’s another example: Rishyamuka Mountain, which rises opposite Lake Pampa, was created by Brahma, the Lord of Creation, and the Ramayana says that a virtuous man who sleeps on its summit and dreams of treasure will discover riches on waking, while an evil-doer who tries to climb this peak will be seized by demons while he sleeps. Near a sage’s hermitage, wild elephants, of vast size, streaming with crimson ichor, rush to the lake.¹³

In the Padma Purana, which recounts the formation of the Earth, the mountains are created very soon after the beginning of things. Vishnu, also called here Narayana (usually the equivalent of the Christ, but in this account, more like Christ and Brahma combined) extrudes a lotus from his navel as he floats on the cosmic sea. On and in this lotus all of Creation will appear, including the gods. The lotus is the Goddess Earth, the text says, and the principal pollen in the lotus are the divine mountains, all saturated with the life-sap of Brahma’s lotus, of which 12 are named, including Mounts Meru and Kailas. These divine, original mountains are the shelters of the great-souled beings, such as the Ganas (i.e., Shiva’s attendants, related to Ganesh, the elephant-god) and Siddhas (highly advanced human ascetics), and they surround Jambudvipa, the Rose-Apple Tree Land, a paradaisal continent, not exactly on the Earth but in the proximity of Mount Meru, the cosmic mountain.

The Padma Purana notes that the filaments of this primordial lotus became the innumerable mountains on the Earth, thereby implying that mountains are fundamentally important as both geological (and spiritual) features on the Earth and that they are implicitly connected to and still part of a higher spiritual source that is the archetype of all mountains.¹⁴

From these descriptions we may deepen our sense of a sacred mountain: not only is it a massive source of light and spiritual energy, but a carrier of pollen and life-sap from a