Lyme Regis
The French Lieutenant Woman’s stare was “aimed like a rifle at the farthest horizon.” Did Fowles come up with that image perhaps standing as I was this evening on The Cobb, looking into the blue distance, for redemption, for love, for acceptance? Or did Fowles think it for her as he was actually writing? Every sight, the Jurassic cliffs, the sparse tree on the cliff top, the way the evening defined the folds of rock. He must have seen these things, for every aspect of this place was like a memory. I had one contact with Fowles, a postcard sent to me in Malawi, handwritten, wishing me luck with my writing endeavors. But my direct contact with him was through his work and the glimpses I had of his genius (my mothers’s word for him – and in literary matters I almost always bowed to her judgement). Inspiration is a very personal thing, it is when a work reaches inside you and you are swept away, the external world bleeding away, made invisible by prose. Today I was in the cradle of his inspiration, Fowles’s home town. I still mourn his passing, but in the beauty of Lyme this soft summer evening I felt he lived on as surely as the fossils that compelled. His characters, words, like ammonites resting in the bedrock of his work, waiting for the next writer to seek inspiration from him, finding it like buried treasure. Jane Austen loved it here. Ian McEwan wrote Chisel Beach and Fowles lived and worked here. No wonder I felt so at home standing on The Cobb, looking out to sea.
Lyme Regis
The French Lieutenant Woman’s stare was “aimed like a rifle at the farthest horizon.” Did Fowles come up with that image perhaps standing as I was this evening on The Cobb, looking into the blue distance, for redemption, for love, for acceptance? Or did Fowles think it for her as he was actually writing? Every sight, the Jurassic cliffs, the sparse tree on the cliff top, the way the evening defined the folds of rock. He must have seen these things, for every aspect of this place was like a memory. I had one contact with Fowles, a postcard sent to me in Malawi, handwritten, wishing me luck with my writing endeavors. But my direct contact with him was through his work and the glimpses I had of his genius (my mothers’s word for him – and in literary matters I almost always bowed to her judgement). Inspiration is a very personal thing, it is when a work reaches inside you and you are swept away, the external world bleeding away, made invisible by prose. Today I was in the cradle of his inspiration, Fowles’s home town. I still mourn his passing, but in the beauty of Lyme this soft summer evening I felt he lived on as surely as the fossils that compelled. His characters, words, like ammonites resting in the bedrock of his work, waiting for the next writer to seek inspiration from him, finding it like buried treasure. Jane Austen loved it here. Ian McEwan wrote Chisel Beach and Fowles lived and worked here. No wonder I felt so at home standing on The Cobb, looking out to sea.
A Dream Come True
We drove from the mainland across estuaries and out into the vast expanse of wetland under the blue dome of the sky and invisible beyond, the blackness of space. Arrowed formations of birds flew low over the perfectly straight concrete road, and beyond them the VAB, scale distorting the mind’s eye; expected but nonetheless extraordinary. Out there on the coast, grey and distant like faded dreams, stand Launch Complex 39A and 39B from which human hearts were launched in a maelstrom of fire and thunder. A few returned only in spirit, their bodies dissolving in the broiling air, the rest returning as their corporeal selves.
For birds flight is as natural as breathing. For us machines of huge weight, unimaginable power, sophistication — the product of cooperative endeavor — are needed to lift us from the earth, yet our dreams do as good a job of flight as the feathers of a bird. With the nearest human being over three miles away (any closer, then the concussive effect of a launch would stop a human heart) the doers of dreams lay alone on top of a barely contained explosion igniting beneath them. I shut my eyes, the birds flap their wings and I return once again with them to a place where dreams come true.
High FlightOh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth |
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| Pilot Officer Gillespie Magee No 412 squadron, RCAF Killed 11 December 1941 |
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Home
I arrived in a space ship, flying through the night, invisible to the world.
As though in a science fiction future cars containing single spirits move silently on velvet smooth surfaces at high speed past glittering, anonymous temples of commerce. Green leaves, so bright, so verdant, pop fresh into the consciousness. Nobody is visible outside the cars, no people wander across the road, no cows lie down to rest or chomp on the fresh grass in the median. Everything works, efficiently, compellingly, rapidly. The interior of the car is scented sweet, with something other than the smell of human beings. All is so familiar, yet so confusingly distant. I feel as though the images I am seeing are on an iPad and with one swipe of my fingers I will be back in the rough noise of Kathmandu, traveling in first gear on pot-holed roads, avoiding the cows, motor cyclists and bare footed pedestrians.
Last night G held a gathering for us at the Four Ps – a local bar/restaurant. It was such a pleasure to see old and dear friends then and throughout the day.
I am home in two places at once. Two sides of humanity in one confused reality. Soon I will shed this skin of confusion and I will be present more completely in a single world.
A Celebration of Life
All I know of Granny next door is that morning and night she prays on the rooftop, rings her bell, lights her little fire in a cup fixed to the wall, throws a handful of rice. Today she is 77 – a highly auspicious day. It used to be less common than now, even so the ceremony and the ritual that surrounded it was not well known so the whole celebration was punctuated with shouts of good humor, instructions and laughter.
I will post pictures for a change, it was so colorful and so full of life as Granny sat on her flower bedecked thrown and blessed her children, grand children and great grand children. A fire burned, rice thrown on to it, spirits worshiped. All the married women wear red and gold, widows and unmarried women not. I was privileged to be invited and be part of it. Not surprisingly I had a smile on my face the whole time and was moved almost to tears yet again by something that touches me so deeply about the fascinating culture and it people, something I still cannot put my finger on. Maybe it is something as simple as just being in the presence of humanity celebrating itself, the power of ritual. It is hard to say.
This will be my last blog from Kathmandu for four weeks as the CoP and I are going on leave to attend E’s graduation and see D in his new home in Orlando amongst other things – traveling first to the USA then the UK. 
Pashupatinath Temple: A Way Of Death
Pashupatinath Temple is a one-stop shop for the dead. There you can buy wood, get your head shaved and where you can stay for the thirteen days.
A bell tolls, resonating around the temples and shines and over the green, putrid, holy, Bagmathi River. Along one bank stand square cremation slabs, across the river, full with white shrouds, charred timber and discarded orange garlands are circular stand where, under the guide of Sadus (Holy Men) the spirit is reincarnated. Only Sadus, children and expectant women are buried. The Sadus because they have already reached enlightenment, have been the rounds, 88 million times, babies and pregnant mothers because they are also pure and revered.
The air is thick with smoke from the funeral pyres, the wood mixed with herbs and sandal wood to disguise the smell. When someone dies disposing of the body is typically done within two to three hours. On arriving at the temple the corpse, garlanded with flowers and wrapped in white and orange is taken to a slab and laid out, their face exposed, so the family can put the holy water from the river into their mouths. Milk runs down in the slab into the river. There is a lot of action but no wailing and mourning. That also happens quickly. Our guide told us that grieving is intense and brief. Life has to be lived and carries on. By lying on certain stones the dead are put in touch with Brahman and are purified and their bodies burned. If a corpse awakes at this point due to coming out of a coma or something they are taken to the on-site hospice (all included in the service). Once the pyre is lit, that’s it chum. No way out from there. If the corpse starts twitching at that point it’s because it’s inhabited by an evil spirit. It is very important that the ritual of cremation is carried out correctly, otherwise reincarnation will not occur. There are many ghosts along the shore of the Bagmathi. The outer orange shroud, covered with prayers, is removed, money is placed in the folds of the shrine for ongoing expenses, the head is exposed, flammable liquid and scents are poured into the corpse’s mouth. The chief mourner walks three times clockwise round the corpse with a fist full of flaming straw which he places on the mouth of the deceased. It was an odd, unreal sensation watching this. I was too inhibited to take a picture, but the image remains. The body is weighed down with more wood and halfway through the two or so hours the corpse is turned. The only part remaining is the belly button which it is claimed will not burn.
Woven into this fabric of death and reincarnation are frequent references in the carvings to the Karma Sutra and present in the many lngams reminding the visitor that life and creation is an intimate and vital part of death, the physical remains swept and sluiced away into the slow flowing green river. It is at this temple, once a year where everybody gets high and where today I experienced something raw and vital where a small part of the cosmic jigsaw fell into place. As with all that surrounds me, death, like everything else, is an accessible part of the fabric of the everyday and in the ritual lies the reassurance.
Snapshot: Daisy
Daisy, head down, was eating something off the road. She ambled down beneath me as she went to her feeding stations until she encountered a bicycle on which was a large, white canvas bag full of bananas, It stopped her in her tracks. She waited. The thin, poorly dressed seller stood by the bike and threw her a banana which she consumed whole in one gulp. She stood and waited while the man energetically started scratching his crotch before the door in the wall opened and a customer emerged. Upstairs the elderly lady who lives there and dresses in green spoke to the seller. Beside her was a new character, a man, shaven head, dressed completely in white who looked over the railings at the departing seller followed up the street by amiable Daisy.
Feeding her a banana (worth 1 rupee) might not seem a lot, even to an impoverished banana salesman, but in that action was an underlying sense of duty, compassion and hope for a better life next time around. The choice for the seller was between becoming the owner of the house, or Daisy, the next time around.
Two Ages of Nepal
Rangichangi (as it sounds) is a delightful word and means colorful in Nepalese. The wedding reception we have just attended was rangichangi, with green, red, blue colored lights in potted trees, the bride and groom sitting on gold thrones flanked by red chairs, a blue light running the length of the stage above them. The women’s dresses were a mix of greens (dark and light), red, golds, burned red, golds, bright yellow. The bride was a delicate, rich beauty, henna tattoos, bangles and a flashing, vibrant dress, younger than the groom. She was setting off with him for a new life in Australia (where he is post-doc), which will be an adventure and a half for her. I wonder just how much of her quiet and expressive beauty and dress with change. We walked up onto the stage and said our greetings.
It is such an honor to be invited to such an event and we were fortunate indeed to be asked. The reception was held at the Mega Party Venue. The families contained politicians, a TV presenter, a wide range indeed. The CoP and I went to get some food and sat down and were quickly joined by a young man in a suit (age 12), his cousin (age 10) in a white dress, and her brother, 18 months old, earring, little finger nails painted red, top knot bound with white material, the sweetest little boy with frank wide open eyes and clutching an ice-cream. The two cousins spoke excellent English and were curious enough to ask us questions and lacking the inhibitions to just come up to the table, sit down and start talking. Self possessed, bright, polite and charming. If they are representatives of the new generation Nepal will be in good hands.
After our young friends left an elderly man and his large wife (no English) joined us at the table. I had been just sitting there feeling that I had slipped my moorings and could have floated away, watching the colors and people, effortlessly, all night. It was the man’s tie that caught my eyes first. The Gurkha crossed swords. We struck up a conversation. Here was a man who had traveled half way round the world, been to UK both Edinburgh and London and was posted to Buckingham Palace for a year. He had also been an MP in Nepal for five years. In the space of half an hour we had met the two ages of Nepal and been swept away by this air of kindness, hospitality and acceptance of two visitors. At least the CoP’s embroidered jacket was rangichangi, while I fitted in sartorially with the antithesis to that, but with a nice scarf which in its modest way was somewhat rangichangi.
Touching the Himalayas
The Himalayas hung ice white in a blue sky yesterday, stretching along the horizon, so intense you felt you could touch them, so ephemeral you could blow them away with a breath from your lips. Kites circled above us in the blue sky, eating on the wing, flying free in the sky on top of the world. A sacred landscape shared with friends who had come to stay following their trip to India. It had been a rush to get away early enough and I feared that they might not get to see the mountains, so quickly can they vanish in clouds as though they were never there.
Back in Sri Marga an elderly woman walks out onto her balcony looks up at the sun, genuflects repeatedly, throws rice onto the ground before turning and going back inside her house. Fervent repetition is the currency of spirituality: walls, shrines, statues worn smooth by constant human touch over centuries. Bells rung, candles lit, each day a step in life fueled by compassion and the scent of incense.
Two young boys, shaven heads wearing the claret colored robes of priests performed their customary obeisance before Lord Buddha inside the decorated monastery at the Boudhanath Stupa. Hearts light, their duty over they turned left before the gold statue, offerings of money and a packet of biscuits amongst the flowers, and walked away anti-clockwise. As they reached the entrance a monk stopped them talked to them quietly, smiled and laughed with them and sent them back into the temple to exit it by walking clockwise back around. So prayer wheels are spun clockwise, or turned by the wind or powered by solar panels. Life is touching, turning, scattering, leaving invisible fingerprints on statues dark and reddened by the action of countless people seeking reassurance, strength, fertility from the inanimate, imbuing them with potency.
In my mind I touched the sacred Himalayas, genuflecting before the ice cold rarefied air as one might an erect phallus or a yoni when seeking to conceive, seeking an idea that would grow and thrive, fertility from one of thousands of spirits that reflect every aspect of who and what we are as people.
