Spigot dripping brown.
Child drinking: I thirsty, Ma.
Sore belly, bright eyes.
Courage cracks a smile, even so.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Helen chuckles
Helen chuckles and says sweetly: "if I didn't know I was in the Kathmandu Valley, I could be in the Peruvian Andes." I return her smile and agree, surprised at how familiar the village footpaths feel after living beneath banana trees in Guatemala. Men and women who work like pack-horses to carry feed and grain and fuel up rocky trails, all the while smiling and looking radiant in colorful clothes. I have seen this before, in another time and place. Three year-olds walking the streets without a care -- negotiating the ebbs and flows of the day with peculiar confidence. And back in the city, wading through exhaust and the blaring traffic orchestra: the garbage smells and screech-owl sounds, the juxtaposed beauty and ugliness. Immaculate women walking and scrambling street children who hang on your arm and beg you for coins: this, too, familiar. But moments do not have to be novel in order to teach. The begging child opens a space in which to offer compassion and loving eyes: a firm, kind hand and a crayon drawing of a flower. "I know this isn't the money you ask for, love, but take a glimpse of color as a blessing. Maybe a whisper of beauty in the harshness you know?"
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
A Monk's Blessing
If ever you fall into dreams and awake at the foot of a winding stone stair, brave the thousand steps and climb with humble courage toward the cloud-top mist. At the top of the stair you may find a thousand butter candles glowing hopefully, like the sound of flapping wings: lighting the moment with magic and majesty. And if you do not disappear into the dancing flames, you may notice the entrance to a small cave, marked by the fingerprint-jewels of the orange, red and buttercup yellow offerings. And should you choose to enter, there may be a monk rocking in meditation (and the sound of your grandmother's rocking chair may peer through the gentle pulse). He may smile to see your sweet bare toes and invite you to sit and receive a blessing. Not missing a rhythmic beat in the buzz of his low-hum meditation, he may make a generous space for you with his eyes. The monk's kind blessing may leave you silent and joyful and you may walk away forever changed. If ever you fall into dreams and awake at the foot of a winding stone stair, brave the thousand steps and climb with humble courage toward the cloud-top mist. At the top of the stair you may find a thousand butter candles glowing hopefully, like the sound of flapping wings ...
The brightest red I have ever seen...
is the blood of a goat slaughtered as an offering to the Hindu Goddess Kali. Perhaps the gentle family making the offering would choose a word other than slaughter to describe slitting the throat of a trembling goat and letting the steaming blood shower the temple with devotion. The four year-old son seemed peculiarly unshaken by the death of the goat whose body quivered for an eternal moment after the beheading. I nearly thought he would walk in the blood to feel the warmth.
I arrive at Dakshinkali temple not to judge, but to observe. Flowers and ritual pigments color the affair with the ripest orange and yellow. But it is the brightest red that stuffs cotton down my throat and makes my heart feel like a knot of rubber-bands. The goat was shaking: standing with its hind legs wide and unstable, as if it would faint at the smell of its prescribed death. Impermanence is palpable: a hovering cloud of that same cotton-in-the-mouth feeling, but in a way a blessed reminder of how to live.
The brightest red I have ever seen is the blood of a goat slaughtered on the steps of Dakshinkali temple. May the life-force of the trembling goat appease Kali-Ma and send blessings, like music notes, into the world. Death is alive on the bloody steps of sacrifice.
I arrive at Dakshinkali temple not to judge, but to observe. Flowers and ritual pigments color the affair with the ripest orange and yellow. But it is the brightest red that stuffs cotton down my throat and makes my heart feel like a knot of rubber-bands. The goat was shaking: standing with its hind legs wide and unstable, as if it would faint at the smell of its prescribed death. Impermanence is palpable: a hovering cloud of that same cotton-in-the-mouth feeling, but in a way a blessed reminder of how to live.
The brightest red I have ever seen is the blood of a goat slaughtered on the steps of Dakshinkali temple. May the life-force of the trembling goat appease Kali-Ma and send blessings, like music notes, into the world. Death is alive on the bloody steps of sacrifice.
Gathering
I take a moment to gather my thoughts: gather like flowers the color of marigold mornings and the ripest strawberry, the yellow of sun-showered dandelions and the green of the newest leaf. Rain could fall and I would be happy, eager to play barefoot in the rice paddies with the children. Women dressed the color of jewelry shops kneel on the earth with artisan hands, transplanting single shoots of rice to hew homes in the luscious mud pools or the terraced hills. Would they feel surprised at my eagerness to know them? Communicating only with shining eyes and laughter? Or am I romanticizing the possibility and they would, of course, assume that I arrive to make business and take photos? I take a moment to gather my thoughts: gather like flowers the color of marigold mornings.
Connections
Jane and I venture to the Internet Cafe still beaming from what was a glowing night of connections. Indigo Gallery's showroom was filled with an audience of young Nepalis, fancifully dressed ex-pats, porter and guide friends from 2007's trek to Lo Monthang, and a sweet journalist/photographer who asked permission to write a piece about the A Gift for the Village presentation. The energetic Gallery owner, James, whose mind spins like a turn-table of the finest music, jumps at the opportunity to make connections in a world he proclaims is small and flat: connections are what make life vibrant, what keeps the wheel spinning. After the showing, he begins listing suggestions of places to show and it just so happens that his wife works at the Embassy and can almost guarantee a showing at the Ambassador's home or the Embassy itself. Wheels turning, ball rolling, artful conversation flowing like sunlight through the tiny leaf-windows of a forest canopy: planting seeds, forming friendships, marveling at the impossibility of connections that provide the spark for the fire: beautiful.
In short: tonight was a night buzzing with the inspiration of small-world connections. A film about building an unlikely bridge becomes a bridge itself: opening a space for connections: personal, artistic, surprising. This is what art can be: conversation, bridge, connection, evolving. When a paintbrush is lifted with respect, compassion, intention, responsibility and loving discipline, bridges might happen, like the unlikely bow of a double rainbow: colorful, rare and heart-inspiring. I feel honored to be a witness of such beauty.
In short: tonight was a night buzzing with the inspiration of small-world connections. A film about building an unlikely bridge becomes a bridge itself: opening a space for connections: personal, artistic, surprising. This is what art can be: conversation, bridge, connection, evolving. When a paintbrush is lifted with respect, compassion, intention, responsibility and loving discipline, bridges might happen, like the unlikely bow of a double rainbow: colorful, rare and heart-inspiring. I feel honored to be a witness of such beauty.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Kathmandu: Arrival
Time travel is real.
Chasing light to Kathmandu,
The journey begins.
We are exhausted and laughing in Kathmandu. We arrived this morning after what was an adventurous and mind-altering journey across time. Jenna explained to me that if you put your finger on the globe in the mountains of Southwest Virginia, exactly half way around the world is Kathmandu. I am the furthest away from home that I could possibly be. I let the night air cool my face, my feet and the delirious buzz of tension that accompanies a lack of sleep and 24 hours of airport re-circulated air. I am thankful to be here. The streets are bustling and busy with colorfully dressed people walking amidst rushing cars, motorcycles and rickshaws who will absolutely not swerve to miss hitting you and will probably not stop if they do hit you: so be careful! Makes walking an always adventure.
We adventured our way across a bridge of trash where water still manages to trickle, up hills of sardine-squished houses whose laundry is more beautiful than butterfly wings blowing in the wind. Everything blows here: prayer flags, white linen laundry, the florescent drapes that women wear with their jeweled and gold sandals, the dust-covered hair of the street children who run after us to be for spare change, attention a friendly smile or a distraction from the daily grind. We could see the shiny gold of Swayambu - a magnificent complex of temples in the center of the city - peeking out from the trees on the highest hill in the Kathmandu Valley. Valley: the city of Kathmandu rests in a crater-like valley that is completely surrounded by a perfect circle of peaks. One can feel protected or vulnerable, depending on how you look at it. But on the steps of Swayambu - what one feels is reverence. I could not stop losing myself in the hundreds of red, white, yellow, blue and green prayer flags that were miraculously strung more than a hundred yards between the tops of the trees. Do the monkeys hand the prayer flags? I wonder. Who could possibly have the strength the hurl a bundle of flags across the entire hill so that the flags blow just so, a symphony of prayers surfing the violin strings together: beautiful music. I stood mesmerized, too, by the feeding babies of the monkey mothers who sat just by the stairwell as if to give the tourists a show, expecting peanuts or bananas or a handful of seeds. How can one not be captivated. Tiny babies, so much like humans, learned to feed and follow and walk on their four legs and hold their tail just so so that they can swing and not swirl themselves out of balance. Swayambu is a holy place where hundreds of people gather to worship on any given day. Where hundreds of people gather to worship, to sell their goods, to make a living begging or to simply watch the circus. I am the tourist. I would not say that it is a role I love to play; but I am a foreigner in a faraway land: that is not something I can change. But laugh, share smiles, greet friendly and unfriendly folks alike with a sincere Namaste - that I can do. And listen, most importantly, I can do to. Learn from this place, from the people I meet, the places I see, the surprises, the shocks, the beauty, the struggle. We are beginning: today just scratches the surface.
We go to bed early in hopes that rest will allow our delirium to bloom into a pleasant and energized state of alertness, awareness, and joy. Tomorrow another adventure. Jane, Jenna and friends come home; I come to know this home and understand why it calls them back, again and again.
Time travel is real.
Chasing light in Kathmandu,
The journey unfolds.
Chasing light to Kathmandu,
The journey begins.
We are exhausted and laughing in Kathmandu. We arrived this morning after what was an adventurous and mind-altering journey across time. Jenna explained to me that if you put your finger on the globe in the mountains of Southwest Virginia, exactly half way around the world is Kathmandu. I am the furthest away from home that I could possibly be. I let the night air cool my face, my feet and the delirious buzz of tension that accompanies a lack of sleep and 24 hours of airport re-circulated air. I am thankful to be here. The streets are bustling and busy with colorfully dressed people walking amidst rushing cars, motorcycles and rickshaws who will absolutely not swerve to miss hitting you and will probably not stop if they do hit you: so be careful! Makes walking an always adventure.
We adventured our way across a bridge of trash where water still manages to trickle, up hills of sardine-squished houses whose laundry is more beautiful than butterfly wings blowing in the wind. Everything blows here: prayer flags, white linen laundry, the florescent drapes that women wear with their jeweled and gold sandals, the dust-covered hair of the street children who run after us to be for spare change, attention a friendly smile or a distraction from the daily grind. We could see the shiny gold of Swayambu - a magnificent complex of temples in the center of the city - peeking out from the trees on the highest hill in the Kathmandu Valley. Valley: the city of Kathmandu rests in a crater-like valley that is completely surrounded by a perfect circle of peaks. One can feel protected or vulnerable, depending on how you look at it. But on the steps of Swayambu - what one feels is reverence. I could not stop losing myself in the hundreds of red, white, yellow, blue and green prayer flags that were miraculously strung more than a hundred yards between the tops of the trees. Do the monkeys hand the prayer flags? I wonder. Who could possibly have the strength the hurl a bundle of flags across the entire hill so that the flags blow just so, a symphony of prayers surfing the violin strings together: beautiful music. I stood mesmerized, too, by the feeding babies of the monkey mothers who sat just by the stairwell as if to give the tourists a show, expecting peanuts or bananas or a handful of seeds. How can one not be captivated. Tiny babies, so much like humans, learned to feed and follow and walk on their four legs and hold their tail just so so that they can swing and not swirl themselves out of balance. Swayambu is a holy place where hundreds of people gather to worship on any given day. Where hundreds of people gather to worship, to sell their goods, to make a living begging or to simply watch the circus. I am the tourist. I would not say that it is a role I love to play; but I am a foreigner in a faraway land: that is not something I can change. But laugh, share smiles, greet friendly and unfriendly folks alike with a sincere Namaste - that I can do. And listen, most importantly, I can do to. Learn from this place, from the people I meet, the places I see, the surprises, the shocks, the beauty, the struggle. We are beginning: today just scratches the surface.
We go to bed early in hopes that rest will allow our delirium to bloom into a pleasant and energized state of alertness, awareness, and joy. Tomorrow another adventure. Jane, Jenna and friends come home; I come to know this home and understand why it calls them back, again and again.
Time travel is real.
Chasing light in Kathmandu,
The journey unfolds.
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