The Living Mountain.
Nan Shepard.
As part of my ongoing research into the landscape and my search for a deeper understanding of the backdrop to my childhood and those formative years, I have been looking for artists and writers who were also shaped in some way by the same geography. After reading Belonging by Amanda Thomson, one of the books I felt drawn to next was The Living Mountain by Nan Shepherd.
The Living Mountain is a celebration of the Cairngorms. It is not quite a nature journal and not simply a hiking book, but a lyrical and contemplative prose rooted in Shepherd’s deep understanding of and reverence for the Cairngorm mountains. What struck me most was just how intimate her relationship with the landscape is. At times her language feels almost provocative in its closeness, as though she is not only observing the mountains but folding herself into them. There is such life and lust in her descriptions, such a wild current running through even the quietest moments, yet always held in balance by a deep respect for the elements and their raw force. Phrases like “to see the earth as the earth must see itself” and “love pursued” stood out to me, not simply because they are beautiful, but because they suggest a mutual connection between person and place. The landscape is not passive. It embodies experience. It shapes as much as it is shaped.
Shepherd’s sense of interconnectedness also felt significant. The idea that “everything is connected to everything else” is not presented as abstraction, but something lived and sensed. She often moves through the Cairngorms with “no intention, no destination,” allowing conscious thought to loosen its grip, and in doing so her “sense of outer reality” seems to deepen. Even in a simple phrase such as “the loch of the corrie of the loch” there is a circling motion that mirrors her repeated returns to the same places, each time perceiving new depths.
I happened to be reading the book around the same time my mum and I visited Kingussie in the summer. While we were climbing Creag Bheag, we came across a resting place hidden in a clearing halfway up the path, marked only by the inscription “the living mountain.” It echoed the same feeling I had with my Loch Voil painting and the connection to my grandmother on my mum’s side running as an undercurrent in my practice. It was another reminder, or sign for lack of a better word, that I am on the right path. These crossovers keep happening.
There was such peace in that space, and such contrasting energy. We were sheltered from the wind, yet could still see it racing and winding through the trees and blaeberry bushes around us, with insects buzzing back and forth. Looking down over the plateau, I tried to take in every last detail and hold it in my mind, knowing it would still fall short of the real thing. The presence and energy were immense. It felt beyond language or explanation.
I know these places feed me and my art practice in a way that is essential. Reading The Living Mountain felt like recognising the same running, not away from something, but into something. Into something deeper and larger than ourselves, something that feels like a necessity.
