Mount Hengshan nan

The five great sacred mountains of China

In China I traveled along the five great sacred mountains – the Wŭ Yuè/五岳 in the spring of 2015. This group consists of a Northern, Eastern, Middle, Western and Southern mountain spread out over a large part of China. The original plan was to stay on one mountain and observe life for two months, exactly like I did on mount Olympus in Greece in 2014. But when entering China by train and really experiencing the pace of the country it felt unnatural to stay on one mountain. I tried at Zhongnan-shan near Xi’an but I quickly wanted to move on, like everybody and everything seems to be on the move in China. So, the plan changed to a pilgrimage along the ancient five great sacred mountains,the Wŭ Yuè/五岳. That made a whole new experience. The constant movement and change of scenery, from ascending the old mountains and experiencing the timelessness of nature to the descent back to reality of contemporary city life. After five mountains, going up and down I felt like I have been swapping in and out of time zones for four months.
While being on the mountains I collected the earth and made clay sculptures from it and placed them in selfmade shrines along the way.