Cindy J Sullivan

The Tientai Mountains are my home
mist-shrouded cloud paths keep guests away
thousand-meter cliffs make hiding easy
above a rocky ledge among ten thousand streams
with bark hat and wooden clogs I walk along the banks
with hemp robe and a pigweed staff I circumambulate the peaks
once you see through transience and illusion
the joys of roaming free are wonderful indeed

— Han Shan (Cold Mountain)
from The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain

Cold Mountain 1 - by Cindy J. Sullivan oil paint, book pages, and sumi ink (9×22 in)

This is a collage/mixed media painting I did a few months ago. Cold Mountain was a poet who lived in a cave in the Teintai Mountains in China about twelve hundred years ago.

After reading his poems I sat at my table and started putting together this piece, thinking about Alaska (where I grew up) and hiking off into the mountains. When reaching the tops, in front of me were views so magnificent that all I could feel is this vastness, the transience of our existence and how we only pass through each moment of time once.

 

 

Whoever has Cold Mountain’s poems
is better off than those with sutras
write them up on your screen
and read them from time to time
- Han Shan (Cold Mountain)