Note: The Siberia/Mongolia series is archived here.
Today, I start over in this series on Mongolia/Siberia. I now have in my possession a transcription of the notes taken by my dear new friend and roommate from the trip. J.K. — and plan to include her offerings in future posts, which, I warn you, could be endless — so endless is the sky there, the generosity of the native peoples, the magic and beauty of the land — all deep and sustained sustenance for we who live entangled in the destructive matrix of western culture.
Here’s J.K. —
who happens to have been born only one month prior to me! Four planets in Scorpio, some of them exactly conjunct those of two other dear old friends — plus my own mother’s Mars! So I’d say our meeting was destined. Two battle-scarred, heart-opened 74-year-old ’60s warrior females on the journey of our lives, back to the sacred springs of aliveness, “processing” events and encounters together at night, or in early morning at stops along the way. Seeing our shadows and their projections, calling each other on them, laughing. Yes!
Our trip leader Bill Pfeiffer, here shown about to tackle his beloved omal fish from Lake Baikal —
has asked members of our tour group to write up something about our experience of the journey.
Here’s J.K.’s offering:
Who caressed this soft earth into the sleeping hills that dreamed us here, into this place of horses, ravens and eagles and a sun that lingers long into the late sky? What ancient and wild country is this, where Buddhists and shamans hold one another in high and holy esteem, where milk flows as a sacrament to Earth, and where the great unblinking eye of Baikal communes with the heavens? How did we come to this land of bone and rock, of boundless kindness and profound generosity of spirit?
And here’s mine:
I echo JK’s expression of communion with this vast land and its peoples, as well as the kindness and compassion with which we were greeted, our every need met. Beyond that — as if it could be said that there is a “beyond that” miraculous continuity of deepening expression and comprehension — I was and am deeply surprised by how our guides subtly initiated each new day as yet another wondrous unfolding eternity. We never knew what the new day would offer, always kept off-balance; this in turn never failed to invoke trust, our surrender to experience. It was as if we sitting atop a wide, ever changing river, with many turns and thrusts, sometimes roiling, at other times smooth and clear like glass — and all we could do was hang on and marvel, as each new day brought a new, stunning encounter, a wide shimmering presence, an even greater mystery. Thank you thank you.
