The secret Strength of things

Which governs thought, and to the infinite dome

Of heaven is as a law, inhabits thee!

                          Shelley, Mont Blanc

In the tradition of the anchorites of all times, my father loved to meditate in caves. In the mountains of Chamonix in the French Alps, facing Mont Blanc, he found a grotto between two massive boulders.

Improvising rough-made walls and windows to keep out the rain and snow and let in light, Pir Vilayat made this his hermitage for periods of seclusion.

Once the cave was buried in a terrible snowstorm, and he only just survived. During the ordeal, angels visited him.

The “Old Man of the Mountain” (as local people knew him) no longer sits in his cave in Chamonix, but the cave remains, a testament to his soaring vigils.

Photos courtesy of Ahad Cobb and Widad Bennett.