Where Our Feet Took Us In Kathmandu...

Walking around the Boudha Stupa--the largest temple of its kind in the world--at night, our footsteps echoing against the shuttered buildings that circle the colorfully lit holy place. A young man walking in front of us spun the prayer wheels tucked into the walls of the stupa, and each wheel spun its own sound into the quiet air. We took our time, keeping the temple on our right as Buddhists do with many holy objects and places, pausing to spin the wheels ourselves--they're filled with papers inscribed with holy mantras, and there's something very satisfying about putting blessed words into motion. Josh quoted the composer John Cage who said: "Every sound is a perfect expression of the circumstances of its creation." Felt very true surrounded by the sounds of prayers spinning and our own breathing.

To the east side of town, up hundreds of stairs, to another stupa nicknamed the Monkey Temple. Sadhus (Hindus who have renounced worldly possessions to follow their gods) rushed us with blessings they wanted us to pay for. The prayerful and the curious rung bells that reverberated against our skin. Children snacked on thin slices of coconut, young monks gazed and giggled from the monastary's roof top, candles flickered, priests poured holy water into the hands of the clamoring faithful, monkeys roamed across the hill top--at turns disdainful and playfully eager. Vendors sold chalk and visitors scrawled their names, the names of gods, scientific equations, proclamations of love all over the buddhas and walls and small temples set about the stupa. A wildly festive confluence of the religious and the secular and the energy of the human appetite for both elements--balloons, roasted chick peas, prayer beads, cameras clicking, voices chanting, crumpled plastic bags, trees strung with prayer flags, the day's haze softening the whole scene.

Several hours up and up and up into the hills around Kathmandu, following a trail through pine trees and past small huts and monastaries, to a Buddhist nunnery at about 8,000 feet. We serrendipitiously arrived during a nine day celebration of over 600 pujas (religious rites)--part of their preparation for the new year. Sitting cross-legged with nuns and monks and other devotees who made the trek, we drank blessed Nescafe, ate blessed Tibetan bread and apples and biscuits. Nuns circled through the crowd pouring blessed whiskey and wine into our hands which we sipped and then rubbed into our heads for wisdom (our friend Mike helped us follow along with all of this). The chanting never stopped, hands moved continously over prayer beads, horns and trumpets occasionally shook the building with their deep notes. We ended up trekking back down to the valley at sunset and then in the light of a glowing half moon, picking our way carefully along the ridge until we reached the road that took us back to town and a feast with friends.

With peace and love,
J&J