Blessings | His Holiness Je Khenpo On the day of our departing, there was a massive blessing ceremony by the one person whose relationship to the King of Bhutan is on an equal. This is His Holiness Je Khenpo. Arising early that morning, prepping to head out, there was a series of bellows coming from across the valley that either were some bull roaring conquests, or...alternatively, Bhutanese prayer chanting, that deep bi-chordal sound that the monks make in their deepest intonations. I'd asked...

We'd gone to a massive ceremony celebrating the presence of His Holiness Je Khenpo, this, actually, being at the end of the trip, the end of a day so long and filled with experiences and adventure, that I'd thought really -- both: "why not?" "But, how can I?" There was something awry to our connections there -- Tsewang, the guide, had negotiated with the leadership guarding the entryway into the sacred space where HH Je Khenpo was intoning his lines of  prayer; and there was an entire litany...

Bhutan Journal I've been thinking about the concept of the stair. You go up. You go down. There are the two ways; there's not much else. One path, ascension. One path, descent. I'm finding myself being focused on that, the movements of the steps -- in either way, up, or down. It's all a part of that notion of procession. I proceed upwards, or downwards, there's some kind of magic to it. There's some kind of mystery to it. Every step. And there have been so many, in the last while -- the last...

Bhutan Journal The Treasure Revealer at 7 Years of Age. His Holiness | Terton Drukda Dorji Photo by Tim Girvin What length, these days. What breadth, in experience. Beginning at 4.30am, climbing to Taksang, being the first there (on the most spectacularly auspicious day), summiting above that edifice, coming all the way back down after 7 hours -- and then driving high (again) into the mountains once more, to explore this other place, a monastery long closed to the public for the day, now --...

What splash, what psychedelia, that is India! Dizzy-making, whirling, whizzing, a deep folio, colorations like anything, but all mixed up. Splattering and spattering -- carnival. Photos by Tim Girvin Color spinner. What inspirations, found in the sheer nerve of these combinations. I'll follow them.

Printing prayers | 10.31 I'd written about this, earlier -- https://tim.girvin.com/Entries/?p=346 -- the power of that which is transcribed to translated prayer. That prayer is a series of sacrosanct sounds, it's a vibration; it's a resonation -- and that writing that is, in itself, something magical; it's an interpretation of that power. But that concept is really forgotten, in most parts of the word. Except Bhutan. So going to the library, the national library -- in Paro, Bhutan, you have...

Bhutan Journal Taksang Monastery | The Tiger's Nest For a decades, coming to this remote outpost, was a dream. You could call the entire trip to Bhutan as the exemplar for this sense of remote connection -- something powerful and distant; something marvelously contained, like a mysterious jewel. And for me, for many others I'm sure this place captures -- and captivates, all. For the heart of the practice, the mystic character of the entire spiritual community of the Himalayas, Taksang is the...

Greetings and good morning. It's been a while -- and it's been a wild while...literally. Things are primitive here, but actually more primitive than I'd thought. Hard to find ways to link in, even in places that I'd thought I'd connect -- there have been actual electrical challenges as well. Because of drought, there have been "load shedding" and energy distributions that have been challenging to hook up. And right now I'm on a land line surrounded by friendly Bhutanese and we're talking while...

Bhutan Journal I'm a lover of scent; I've explored that for some time; I've even got a collection of rare old books on fragrance -- and fragrance making. I just like to smell things. Books, pigments, antiquities, art objects, stone, leather, grass, lightning, sand, sun, flesh. So I've been always curious about scent -- but more to the potentials of exploring incense; making the compressed stick that, since ancient times, have been creating a fragrant space, borne of smoke. Fire heats and...

Light, dark,  shadow | 10.29 | Trongsa Dzong I've learned a lot about light. And about seeking it, finding it. Going there. Where light is. And where it isn't. In fact, I'm still learning about light. And I'll be always learning about light, I'm imagining. But I had this one experience, coming back from the monastery of the Divine Madman, Chimi Lakhang, (Lama Drukpa Kuenlay) and like anything else, we were late. We were, we are, late because we stop incessantly. And these stops always have to...