Yaks, Tarot Cards and Butter Tea

For spectacular and diverse scenery there are few trails in the world that compare with the Ganden to Samye journey, located in Tibet to the south-east of Lhasa. The area around Ganden and Lhasa is arid high desert. Soon after the first ridge the countryside turns to a more moist tundra - moss and grass divided into 1 and 2 foot sections by hundreds of deeply worn yak paths. On the long descent the trail winds through lush, wet forest beside a fast moving stream, only to emerge into desert again in the Samye region.

Ganden to Samye is supposed to be a three day trek. It took me five, blame it on the altitude if you wish, but I saw no reason to hurry through such a once-in-a-lifetime journey. There are obstacles also, one being a stream at the foot of the first ridge. It was only about ten feet across, but with images of becoming soaked from a fall into the icy water I stopped to remove my shoes.

I was a little embarrassed when a pretty goat herder woman nimbly stepped over the stream on the slippery rocks, scooped up my shoes and socks, and glided back. I waded, holding onto the rocks for balance. As I climbed the bank on the other side I saw the herdswoman - and my shoes - were some distance up the hill where she and her sister had built a small fire. They greeted me with giggles and a cup of butter tea --- it seemed they did not expect a foreigner to know how to properly cross a stream.


We sat quietly, hand gestures and my few words of Tibetan passing for conversation. The principal tool of herders in Tibet is a wool sling about a yard (meter) long, with a woven pocket in the center. With this they can send a rock 50 yards or more with amazing accuracy. Just a reminder of this is usually enough for the goats - occasionally one woman or the other would snap her sling, making a sharp crack, and the goats would quickly move back together.

I finally moved onwards with gestures of silence about the Dalai Lama pictures I gave them, and walked around the hillside to the only lake on the route. There I pitched my tent and watched the evening arrive.

Tashi Dele! I had only gone inside for a short time when a young man hailed me. He herded yaks in the neighborhood and wanted to greet his visitor.

We were exchanging a few words when he spotted my Tarot cards. He looked through them with great interest, seeming to know what they meant, although he had certainly never seen the Tarot before. When he came to the Hierophant I called it "Dalai Lama" with a gesture that said "almost". He nodded as if that was what he had already surmised. As he was leaving I jokingly extracted a promise that he would keep the yaks away from my tent and then quickly fell asleep.

It was first light when came again: Tashi Dele! Tashi Dele! This time it was an older man, likely the father, and he went straight for the Tarot. He studied each card, adsorbing the pictures. I pointed out the Empress as "Tara" but it had little effect - he knew what they were, probably understood them better than I did.


More of my journeys in the Himalayas can be found in other posts on this same blog Tibetan Visions, and still more at the website TravelinTibet: Spiritual journeys in Tibet.


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Tibetan Yak - woodblock print from Kathmandu

Nomads Wander But Are Not Lost

I trek for solitude, enjoying the mountains and the feeling of exploration. Yet when I remember the journey between Ganden and Samye monasteries in the high mountains of Tibet it is the people that come to mind.

There were the two cowboy types that invited me to ride their yak (no thank-you!) and the other two who found me setting up camp near the top of a pass one evening (which is not a very good idea). They insisted that it was only a short walk to the next village (for you, friend, but not for me).


The most memorable was a nomad family I met on the second day. I saw two big brown tents on the hillside and wandered up to ask the proper direction. There was an extended family around a fire of yak dung who greeted me with shouts of Tashi Dele! and the ever present butter tea.

The Dalai Lama had sent word to his people that westerners should be welcomed and the message had spread even to those far from the cities. I certainly felt welcome watching the children run around and the grandmother tend the fire.

The man and woman who were the parents of the kids had a long wooden trough filled with water. Each sat at one end as they washed a woolen cloth with the ends tied together making a loop. They squeezed it in the water then passed it along, the loop going in circles in the trough. It was such an image of domestic cooperation that I often remember that couple when I do my own laundry.


Later I followed a small stream to what I knew was the last pass on the trail. As I came around a bend I was confronted by a spectacular wall of stone, rising out of the mountainside. The pathway up it was easy enough and I shared the space on top with several other tourists - the only other westerners I had seen on the journey.

The more I looked at the countryside the more remarkable the geology appeared. The wall across the pass, for there is not a better way to describe it, was certainly a natural feature. It appeared to be basalt. Basalt is a rock type formed deep in the earth that is not often seen in the relatively young Himalayas. The two sides of the pass were of two other, different, kinds of stone which was also unusual.

The mountains of Tibet and Nepal were formed by the collision of the land mass of India, which had been part of Africa, with Asia. I wonder if this spot where we were sitting was the division between the two land masses, thrust to a high altitude by the forces that built the world's greatest mountain range. I have no idea if it was, but it did mark a division in my travels, for from here on it was downhill and back into "civilization".

Like I said, downhill.


You can read about my journey to Tibet, and see wonderful old photos of the people and land at my website TravelinTibet.com: Tibetan temples monasteries and adventures.

The Sri Yantra is the symbolic union of Male and Female principles
forming a transformation beyond both.

Ascending Passage Directory of ancient Egypt What is alternative Egyptology's great mystery?


ShaktiNode Directory is about the many forms of the ultimate primordial creative power.


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Ganden Monastery - Ruins from a Window

Ganden was a wasteland.

Once one of Lhasa's "big three" monasteries (along with Drepung and Sera), Ganden took the full brunt of the Cultural Revolution.

In 1966 the Red Guard came to Tibet from China, determined to wipe out the "Four Olds": old thinking, old culture, old habits and old customs. The end result was the destruction of all but a few of Tibet's monasteries, the loss of many other parts of Tibetan culture and many deaths.




I had walked for parts of three days to get there from Lhasa, to be rewarded by a steep climb into a bowl-like area populated with acres of crumbling, ragged, weed filled mud brick walls, the remains of a monastery that once held thousands of monks.

Ganden was the seat of the Gelugpa sect of Tibetan Buddhism - the "Yellow Hats" that include the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama. When I was there in 1987 a small attempt had been made to restore the place as a functioning monastery, the main chapel had been reopened and perhaps a hundred monks were in residence. The place felt empty.

In a restaurant I met a former monk from Ganden. As a young man he had dropped his vows to fight the Chinese invasion in 1959, like so many others. Now, with a passport from India, he was revisiting the places that he once knew. He had a photograph of himself looking out from the ruined window of his old room, only half the wall still standing.





Mostly I rested in my two days at Ganden, but I did walk the Kora, a clockwise circuit around the monastery. A number of Tibetans were doing the same. There are spectacular views of the valley below, depressing views of the monastery ruins and rock paintings and other significant sites the meaning of which I did not then know.

One place I had heard about, but an older Tibetan woman made sure. About halfway into my Kora she stopped me on the trail, pointing to an area uphill of where we were. Shaking her head and making "don't go" gestures she began barking and mimicking a dog biting.

I knew what she was saying - up there was the sky burial site - the place where the Tibetans bring their dead to be cut to pieces and fed to vultures. In recent years foreigners had been making a nuisance of themselves at sky burial sites here and elsewhere by acting disrespectfully and intruding where they should not go. I gestured to the woman that I had no intention of visiting the site and motioned to the onward trail of the Kora. This was fine with her and we smiled at each other as we parted.


I understand that a lot of effort has been put into rebuilding Ganden since my visit there in 1987. It is meaningful that the Tibetans, despite so much adversity, would place such importance on recreating this and other parts of their world.


The Tibetan spirit wins over even the casual visitor to their land. More of my journeying in Tibet can be read about at:
TravelinTibet.com

Beautiful handcrafted jewelry of Nepal and Tibet is available for sale:

AccentNepal.com - which is an Ebay hosted store, and also: JewelryTibet.com- an independent wholesale website which is open to the public.

Tashilumpo Gompa and the Panchen Lama

As I was settling into my hotel in Shigatse I learned that there would be a special festival at Tashilhunpo Monastery (called a Gompa). Shigatse (Shigatze) is in central Tibet, a region of arid plains that is the traditional home of the Panchen Lama, second only to the Dalai Lama in authority in the principal Buddhist sect of Tibet.

Of course more travelers were arriving in Shigatse each day, but instead of staying a few days like they normally would, they wanted to see the festivities too. The system overloaded. Our kindly landlord knew there was nowhere else to go and opened some of his own rooms.

Then came the tents. Tibetans, even city ones, love tents. I wanted one: clean white with royal blue borders and the wheel of the Dharma or other spiritual symbols in the center. We had tents in the courtyard, tents on the roof. Finally the owner was saying "floor sleeping - no money". We got everybody in.






Thanka! Thanka! The lady of the house was rousing us and shooing us out to the Monastery.

Thanka! Thanka! I'd rather sleep. A thanka is a Buddhist religious painting and I knew the early days of the festival featured the display of huge thankas on the side of a building built for the purpose.

Thanka! Her real reason was that she had an important guest coming and she wanted all these scruffy foreigners out of the way. I went to see the thanka.

The day's event was mostly a Tibetan picnic. There were lots of oohs and ahhs when the thanka was unveiled- maybe 40 by 60 feet. Big. A form of the celestial Buddha, the basic patterns (archetypes) of enlightenment of which the historic Buddha embodied one aspect.

This was the third and final thanka to be displayed. The next day the Panchen Lama, an embodiment of the Buddha of Abundant Light, gave the ceremony of Abundant Life.

The intent of the ceremony is to release the barriers to long life such as fears and habits. Most of the work is done in seclusion, the monks chanting for days, with periodic breaks for music and tea.

The last day the Panchen Lama transmitted the built up energy to the gathered people and to the world. There was no need to be solemn, the Tibetans acted as if it's yet another picnic. The Panchen Lama sat behind a golden screen (it's the God speaking through him, remember) as his electronically amplified voice alternated between speech and what sounded like nonsense syllables. Periodically the horns (those long, amazing Tibetan horns) and drums played to stir the air, if not the spirit world as well.

I arrived for the ceremony fairly early and sat near most of the other foreigners. Despite their casual attitude this was very important to the Tibetans and we all felt a little like we were intruding. The ceremony was to start at 12 o'clock and we were anxious to begin. The man next to me said it was two minutes 'till. And that was the most curious thing: at exactly twelve o'clock it began to rain.


The above is an excerpt from Travelin Tibet, the story of my 1987 journey to that magical land. More of the tale (the parts that I have so far written, anyway) is in other posts on this blog and at: Travel in Tibet.com

Beautiful handcrafted jewelry of Nepal and Tibet is available for sale:

AccentNepal.com - which is an Ebay hosted store, and also:
JewelryTibet.com- an independent wholesale site which is open to the public.


Tibetanjewelry.net is a brief look at some of the more common Tibetan symbols, with pictures and descriptions.
Tibetan Spiritual Symbols

Kundalini - doorway of evolution

Gopi Krishna was a rather ordinary office worker in India. Like many others in that country he practiced Yoga, in his case by concentrating on an image of a lotus in full flower at the top of his head.

Late in 1937, as he sat meditating in his apartment, he began to feel a powerful energy at the base of his spine. He kept his attention on the crown chakra as he "felt a stream of liquid light entering my brain through the spinal cord". (page 12)

For the next 25 years this energy, continually flowing up the spine, reworked and refined the organs of his body, after many difficulties opening his consciousness to an unimaginable dimension of bliss.

This is Kundalini, the human manifestation of Shakti - the divine creative force. In Tantric lore Kundalini is said to be a serpent coiled sleeping around the base of the spine in every human. Very few manage to awaken Kundalini, and it is highly dangerous to do so, leading, without severe discipline, into madness or death.

Gopi Krishna's book "Kundalini - the Evolutionary Energy in Man", from which the quotes in this article are drawn, is an attempt to understand Kundalini in modern terms. For this "liquid light" is nothing less than the mechanism of the next phase in human evolution.

Repressed sexuality is basic to many theories of mental disease. The pioneering work of Wilhelm Reich is focused on releasing the bodily stresses that inhibit the free flow of streaming energy from the sexual centers. But even Reich did not suspect the immense power that lies dormant there.

The energy that was released in Gopi Krishna was intelligent - it cleared its' own path and re-designed, over many years, the functions of the body, while demanding a large and high quality diet and a quiet, simple life. This is the reverse of Reich's methods, for he tried to open the energy pathway through emotion release, body work, and orgone (life energy) concentrators. But, Reich saw, as Krishna did, that the process was a natural one, inherent in the structure of our beings.

Kundalini immediately became the dominant force in Gopi Krishna's life, again and again pushing him to the brink of destruction: "... My whole system was functioning in an altered manner, forced to a far higher pitch of metabolic activity under the compulsion of the lustrous, vital energy racing through my nerves ... my body was undergoing a process of purgation and rejuvenation side by side with some definite purpose entirely beyond my grasp." (page 149)

To Gopi Krishna, Kundalini is "an ever-present possibility, existing in all human beings by virtue of the evolutionary process still at work in the race ..." (page 226) and is but the next step in a continuing process that began with the dawn of life itself.

And here we have an insight into the future, not one of technological marvels, but of vastly expanded consciousness: "I am able on occasions to have a fleeting glimpse of the mighty, indescribable world to which I really belong, as a slender beam of light slanting into a dark room through a tiny hole does not belong to the room which it illuminates, but to the effulgent Sun millions and millions of miles away." (page 232 - 233)

As the Sufis say "we are angels in embryo." It is utterly beyond our comprehension just how powerful is our destiny.


ShaktiNode.com is a directory and commentary on the evolving energy that is our unseen essence. A number of subjects, including Gopi Krishna and Wilhelm Reich are discussed, and there are links to web sites that have more complete information. There is a concentration of power at Shakti Node, take a look for yourself!

Click here to go to ShaktiNode.com


Science and Spirituality are truly two sides of the same quest - understanding man's place in the Universe. XSVS is a directory and commentary on some of those who would not be bound into one or the other.

Click here for Spirit Science at XSVS.com


Beautiful handcrafted jewelry of Nepal and Tibet is available for sale:

Click here to go to AccentNepal.com - which is an Ebay hosted store, and also:

Click here to go to JewelryTibet.com - an independent wholesale site which is open to the public.

The Yeti is not Abonimable

Those who travel in the Himalaya often wonder about the Yeti - a Bigfoot type creature said to live in the higher reaches of those mountains. The Sherpas and other people who live in the region have no doubt that the Yeti exists, but often prefer not to talk about it with outsiders.

The story of the Yeti hit popular culture in 1951, long before the public was aware of Sasquatch (Bigfoot) or other man-like creatures living in the wildest areas of the planet. An expedition to the Mount Everest region (which included Edmund Hillary who would be the first to climb to the top of Mt. Everest two years later) returned with a photograph of a large, four toed footprint in the snow:




This photo, taken by Eric Shipton, caused the public imagination to whirl with images of an "Abonimable Snowman" lurking in the mountains, undoubtedly a fierce and dangerous monster. A famous original "Twilight Zone" episode starring young William Shatner featured the monster hitching a ride on an airplane's wing, no doubt intending to terrorize the world.

Fortunately the real story is less scary. Shipton, in his book "The Six Mountains" said that Sen Tenzing, a Sherpa member of the expedition, had seen a Yeti at Thangboche, a village south of the Everest area. Tenzing "described it as half man and half beast, standing about five feet six inches, with a tall pointed head, its body covered with reddish brown hair, but with a hairless face."

Except for the height, this is very similar to descriptions of Sasquatch, although the Yeti footprint above appears to have 4 toes instead of five.


Is a forgotten branch of the human species living, almost unnoticed, deep in the most inaccessible areas of the Earth? If we imagine these beings have a strong aversion to contact with humans (understandable) and greatly heightened senses (and telepathy, if we want to accept that), there still remain enough gaps in our knowledge of the Earth to allow them space to exist.

I hope they do, and that someday we will make contact with them.....
And that they will share their wisdom with us.


Tibet is a most dramatic place to travel. TravelinTibet is a thoughtful tale of my own journey there. A bonus is that I have included many stunning black and white photographs from the American expedition in Tibet in 1942-3.
Click here to go to TravelinTibet.com

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Beautiful handcrafted jewelry of Nepal and Tibet is available for sale:

Click here to go to AccentNepal.com - which is an Ebay hosted store, and also:
Click here to go to JewelryTibet.com- an independent wholesale site which is open to the public.

Whycat.com explores many of the unexplained features of our world with curiosity and intelligence. Cryptozoology, the study of creatures beyond those accepted by science, is one of many topics explored:
Click here to go to WhyCat.com

Tibetanjewelry.net is a brief look at some of the more common Tibetan symbols, with pictures and descriptions.
Click here to go to TibetanJewelry.net

Who - or what - was T. Lopsang Rampa?

In the spring of 1949 an Englishman, Cyril Hoskin, hit his head as he fell from a tree in his garden. From that point he claimed to be Tuesday Lopsang Rampa - a highly trained Tibetan lama who had taken over the body of Mr. Hoskin. As T. Lopsang Rampa he wrote many books about life in Tibet and the esoteric knowledge held by the Tibetan priesthood, including the best seller "The Third Eye" (1956).

The British newspapers quickly decided that Lopsang Rampa was a fraud and published many stories attacking him. Yet a large number of readers enjoyed his books and felt they contained important spiritual teachings.

Rampa stated that Mr. Hoskin had been near suicide and that an agreement had been made with him on the soul level. Hoskin was released from the obligations of his life and a Tibetan soul took over his body. Lopsang Rampa had been carefully prepared in Tibet to perform his important tasks - advance work for the Tibetan diaspora that the Dalai Lama and his advisors knew was coming, and education of Western people in Tibetan ideas.

I have spent two months in Tibet and have spent a great deal of time in Kathmandu, Nepal, where many Tibetan people now live. I can say that Rampa's books have much detail that seems accurate, information that would not be available to an Englishman in the 1950's when Tibet was closed to nearly all foreigners.

If you are are interested in learning about Tibet before the Chinese invasion in 1959 read "Seven Years in Tibet" by Heinrich Harrer and "Journey to Lhasa" by Alexander David Neel. Both these books are written by Europeans who spent a number of years in Tibet. Put these excellent books beside Mr Rampa's work and the difference is clear - Lopsang Rampa knows Tibet from the inside and is at ease with it's intricacies. Neel and Harrer are sympathetic, both have much respect for Tibetian culture, but clearly feel themselves to be outsiders.

The true test of Rampa's work is the authentic feel of Tibet, something only a Tibetan could provide.

Tibet is a most dramatic place to travel. TravelinTibet is a thoughtful tale of my own journey there. A bonus is that I have included many stunning black and white photographs from the American expedition across Tibet in 1942-3.

Click here to go to TravelinTibet.com

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Beautiful handcrafted jewelry of Nepal and Tibet is available for sale:

Click here to go to AccentNepal.com - which is an Ebay hosted store, and also:
Click here to go to JewelryTibet.com- an independent wholesale site which is open to the public.


Tibetanjewelry.net is a brief look at some of the more common Tibetan symbols, with pictures and descriptions.
Click here to go to TibetanJewelry.net


If you enjoyed this look into alternative ideas you will really like my other websites. The central Directory is: WhyCat.com. The paranormal, mysterious, sacred, and unconventional are explored in Whycat. Click here to go to WhyCat.com


Ancient Egypt is a good place to seek our lost understanding. Far more than any other ancient land, the Sahara desert of Egypt has preserved much of what was once there. The website Ascendingpassage.com touches, a little, the amazing insight into the true nature of the Universe once known to the people of the Nile.
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There is evidence all over the world of astounding knowledge in ancient times, knowledge of a different kind than that of today. We have only hints of what has happened on this Earth in ages past. AncientMystery.info reveals a few of the secrets that most historians neglect.
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OEAU.com - Old Elements Always Understand - is a new site discussing an old idea -- that our human experience can be seen in terms of Earth Air Fire and Water. A powerful concept, the site has just begun.
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A few scientists have broken out of the box of convention, creating a new vision where science and spirit are complementary parts of the same whole. Button sorters need not apply. These researches help to bring spirit into science and scientific understanding into spiritual practice. We need not discard our intellect as we seek spiritual truth.
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Domain Names are a must for anyone building their own website. The .com space is so populated that many are turning to alternative extensions for Domains. TLDV.com is a guide to Domain Names. Click here to go to tldv.com

The Earth's web of life is battered and torn these days - a clear reminder of how unconscious acts can cause lasting damage. Healweb.com looks at some possible answers.

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ShaktiNode is about energy - the unseen (by most) life force that is the deeper basis of the Universe. Save this one for last!
Click here to go to ShaktiNode.com