Out West in the 70s

Out West in the 70s with Cold Mountain poems by Han Shan 9th C. translated by Gary Snyder.

Bettina Mueller moved to Aspen, Colorado to be a ski bum in the winter of 1969 and ended up staying for almost ten years. She studied photography at the Center of the Eye with Minor White. Later, she became the Staff Photographer for the Aspen Times and won a photo journalism award for her work.

Han Shan was an eccentric Chinese hermit poet (9th C.) who found meaning in life by living free in the mountains. His Cold Mountain Poems, translated by Gary Snyder, an American poet who went to Japan in 1959 to study Zen, describes the rocks and streams of his home where he lived isolated from the world.

“My home was at Cold Mountain from the start,
Rambling among the hills, far from trouble.
Gone, and a million things leave no trace.
Loosed, and it flows through the galaxies
A fountain of light, into the very mind.”
– Han Shan