We took the high road to Luoyang, which took us through the little Song Shan 嵩山 mountain range. That I chose our main object, the 东岳庙 Zhongyue Daoist temple in 登封Dengfeng, so we could see mountains while avoiding the hordes at nearby Shaolin means I wasn't paying attention. These aren't just mountains. Songshan is the centerpiece
of China's five sacred mountains system. A visiting empress gave Dengfeng the name 天地之中, Center of Heaven and Earth. I'm supposed to know all about sacred mountains, but not only did it not register that the Song Shan by the cradle of Chinese civilization should be that Song, but I was surprised to find it wasn't a single mountain but a range, with
seventy peaks. I've been fundamentally misunder- standing 山 shan, the way someone might think sacred groves are about sacred trees rather than themselves the sacred object - and yet the character 山 itself has multiple peaks! In the event, the Daoist temple was a dud - everything rebuilt in recent decades, a sad reminder that so much of Chinese patrimony has been destroyed. We got our historical fix instead from the authenticallly 6th century 嵩岳寺塔 pagoda at Songyue Temple, China's oldest surviving pagoda and a reminder that, of course, sacred mountains aren't just for Daoists. (Shaolin is a Buddhist temple, too.) 
On our way there we passed a famous ancient Confucian academy, too. The weather was generally nice, though hot summer air is hazy, but one of the peaks remained enshrouded in cloud. As we drove on - the picture at top is actually driving west from Dengfeng - I got a mounting sense of the power of these peaks assembling like storm clouds, or gods.
