Landscape

“We are a landscape of all we have seen.” – Isamu Naguchi

The glamorous Buddha

This is the Chauk Htat Gyi pagoda, or reclining Buddha of Burma.

I like to think of it as the glamorous Buddha.

This lovely statue has pink nails, pretty blue eye shadow (or as the two Thai women I met there said, it is a “pretty-eyed Buddha”), and is clothed in glittery gold robe.

The afternoon I went to Chauk Htat Gyi, I didn’t really mean to end up there, but I did. And, as it turns out,  the moment I arrived, the rains started and didn’t stop for the next several hours. Camera and I waited out the rains and I can certainly think of worse places to spend a few hours. By the end of my time, I still couldn’t come to terms with how grand, beautiful, and overall, quiet this place is.

Night notes: Kathmandu

Leaving this gorgeous city for a quieter life in the Terai in just a few hours. Doubt I will sleep at all knowing I have to be awake again in just two small hours.

Two months. The lovely Terai. Dal Bhat daily.

Maybe I’m just far too excited or curious to sleep anyway. . .

Letang here we come!

[Photos: Views near Swayambunath Temple at Sunset//Grace Farson]

The mysterious Black Bhairab

No one knows much about the Black Bhairab. It was found, lying face down in a forest and dates back to the 4th or 5th century.

Bhairab represents the powerful, destructive forces of Shiva and is in Kathmandu’s Durbar Square to stay.

It was lovely being back with Immy the other afternoon.

Thankful two years hasn’t changed the place much.

[Photos: Around Kathmandu’s Durbar Square//Grace Farson]

Back to Nepal

Oh baby! Here we go again. . .

Nepal round two! Two big years later.

I’m about to explode with excitement and cannot believe I’m really about to go back to this place this afternoon.

Tonight, I’ll be sleeping here and hanging out with Niti and the crew.

[Photos: Kathmandu valley from Swayambhunath temple//Grace Farson]

All that is gold

I don’t even remember where I was when I took these, but I liked this place. I was outside of Jaisalmer in the Thar desert and other than that, I cannot tell you were these monuments were. . .

Today is filled with not so great news, but I feel that things are looking up. There is always something else, something more. . .and a good deal more to look forward to.

A shore of washed stones
A sky the color of stone
A stone cliff

Stony face, stony heart

There is nothing here,
Twisted roots, sea taking the land
Back. Sea wrack
And rain.
There is nothing
Here between us but stone.

One must learn to live with stone,
Make it a bed to lie on
A step to climb.

Carve.

– Kelly Cherry

[Photos: Gold somewhere in India//Grace Farson]

Late

 

 

“Clocks cannot tell our time of day
For what event to pray
Because we have no time, because
We have no time until
We know what time we fill,
Why time is other than time was.
Nor can our question satisfy
The answer in the statue’s eye:
Only the living ask whose brow
May wear the Roman laurel now;
The dead say only how.

What happens to the living when we die?
Death is not understood by Death; nor You, nor I.”
– W.H. Auden, “We’re Late”

[Photos: Borobudur temple, central Java, Indonesia//Grace Farson]