
I used to climb a lot of mountains, but this time I took the mountain railway to the summit. I’d been cooped up for weeks, and I expanded my awareness in gratitude and appreciation at the marvelous natural environment of rocks, trees and alpine meadows which we were passing through on the train. I am a mountain man to my roots, and I deeply love this kind of terrain.
Near the summit, the mist swirled around me as I climbed the rocks to the very top. And suddenly, feeling connected with Gaia, I had a wild thought. I said to myself, as if in prayer: “Gaia, if you can hear me, show me a Brocken Specter.”
Now, a Brocken Specter is a spectacular natural phenomenon which requires a precisely coordinated combination of sun, clouds, atmospherics and moisture. It consists of a huge shadow of oneself projected on the clouds below, surrounded by a rainbow halo. They’re very rare: in all my time in the mountains, years and countless expeditions all over the world, I have seen only a handful of Brocken Specters.
And suddenly, within maybe a minute and a half, one suddenly appeared. There it was. I spent half an hour filming it, in various stages of awe and disbelief. I was staggered. As in the movie Avatar, I found myself thinking: “Eywa has heard me.”