Black Mountain (3-11-2011)

Mountain View Masonic Lodge
& Views of Black Mountain

Photographs from Mountain View
and Los Altos Hills (3-11-2011)

By Peter Y. Chou
WisdomPortal.com

Preface: I've passed by the Masonic Lodge at 890 Church Street in Mountain View many times on the way to Castro Street and the Mountain View Library. This is the first time I've taken a photograph of its logo of compass and square. Mountain View Lodge #194 was granted charter on October 14, 1869. Its present location at the corner of Church Street and Franklin Street (photo) is interesting, since Benjamin Franklin was a Freemason. Franklin became Grand Master of the Pennsylvania Masonic Lodge in 1734. He edited and published the first Masonic book in America (1734). Franklin initiated Voltaire as a Freemason in Loge des Neuf Soeurs, Paris (April 7, 1778). George Washington was also a Freemason. The Freemason's compass resembles the Platonic Lambda's triangle symbolizing "World Soul". Recent poems include Platonic Lambda Sonnet and Vanishing Point. Imagine my surprise in finding a telephone pole with "55" at the corner of Church & Franklin across the street from Masonic Lodge 194. The Platonic Lambda numbers add up to 55! After these photos my friend drove to El Monte Avenue in Los Altos Hills so I could photograph Black Mountain in the distance. I've been riding Bus #40 to Foothill College often and just realized that Black Mountain looks like twin breasts of Mother Earth. For Notes to Poem: The Letter B, I wished to use it for the line "the babe drinking at mother's breast" as a symbol that we're all babes drinking nourishment from Gaia, Mother Earth. I tried to take this photo from Bus #40 on Monday (9:10 am— too foggy), Tuesday (9:40 am— sat at the only seat available in the back with over 40 Foothill students on the bus), Wednesday (Bus #40 had windshield wipers on vertically & blocked view of mountain). Without the Black Mountain photo, "Twin Hills" from the web was used so I could give my Notes to Dobyns class on March 9. Traffic was heavy on El Monte Avenue, so I had to wait before taking photos from the street. The photos were shot at Woodstock Lane and South El Monte Avenue. Afterwards, my friend noticed a giant California Oak on Woodstock Lane, so I went and took a photo of this beautiful tree. The vision of Plotinus in The Enneads I.6.9 came to mind: "never can the soul have vision of the First Beauty unless itself be beautiful." When my friend dropped me off near Foothill Krause Center, I'm saddened by the recent devastation of trees chapped off. Tree of Lightness which greeted me is gone! So are the giant eucalyptus trees surrounding Krause Center. Now the scene resembles T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land. Thanks to some surprising views of beauty that cheered me up.