Friday, January 22, 2010

Mountain

His eyes were as a flame of fire; the hair of his head was white like the pure snow; his countenance shone above the brightness of the sun; and his voice was as the sound of the rushing of great waters
-Doctrine & Covenants 110:3

In Joseph Smith's vision of God, God is depicted like a snow-capped mountain in spring. His head, His mind, contains stored energy, snow, frozen thought, heated by the fires of the sun and melted, transformed into the mighty rushing of great waters that is His voice. He is the God of nature. The God of eternal stasis (immovability of the mountain) and eternal mutability (ever-changing seasons, water cycles, etc.), the interplay of which creates Eternal Life. The Fountain of Living Waters. Stillness, frigidity, and warmth, combine to create energy, eternal delight. The voice of the Lord is action and a source of eternal satisfaction for our thirst, for our longing.
The Lord contains opposites, and created a world of opposition. It's the tension between opposites that produces the energy of creation, the movement of Life.The Lord is still at His center, moving and spinning quickly in His actions and exterior.

Moses sees the Lord as a mountain shrouded in clouds, when he appears on Sinai. The certainty of the mountain and the nebulous unknown of the clouds.

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