Chasing Myths and Catching Mysteries

When you go chasing myths, sometimes you find them. Like finding constellations in the night sky. Your mind connecting dots, stories from elsewhere coming into focus. Told and retold and passed down through time and space. Origins always questionable. But sometimes when the pieces are too disjointed, you end up stitching them together to create something entirely your own.

The parabola like structures came into view the moment we crossed over into Tana Toraja, located in south central Sulawesi, a nearly three hour drive into the mountains from the coast. The U shaped curve of the rooftops towered over everything. From varying angles, they resembled boats, buffalo horns, a smile on stilts. Clusters of them lined the countryside and villages, all adorned with motifs of buffalo, stars clusters, and suns. Like giant spirit houses overseeing the land. 

We asked our driver to tell us about them. The tongkonan are made like boats, he told us. We nudged for more. Like ships? Yes, ships, he said. Our ancestors sailed here from China.

An unlikely story considering what we already knew, but we didn't want to directly ask the question on our mind. We wanted the people of Toraja to tell us their own stories. But getting to the heart of what we really wanted to know, we soon realized, was going to be more difficult than we imagined. 

He turned to us and raised his eyebrows. Want to go to a funeral? I can take you to one tomorrow. A common question that we would get asked again and again. 

We declined. 

I first heard of the Toraja back in 2008 when I first came across the Ring of Fire documentary that got me hooked on Inodonsia. The Blair brothers did a fantastic job of honing in on the mysterious, the tribal, those things that lurk in the shadows of far flung islands. They dug under hundreds of years of colonization, missionary invasions, and tourism and wiped them from their documentary entirely, leaving only the impression that this island nation was something of a black box full of intrigue and wildly undiscovered. 

The first thing we did when we reached the village where we were staying was go in search of the library. It had popped up on google maps and wasn't far from where we were staying. Libraries are places of known and hidden knowledge, new and ancient stories and old maps and discoveries in the waiting. A good place to start our research, to probe into the deeper layers of Toraja. 

When we first approached, it appeared to be closed. The door latched and locked. The front window lined with a sheer pink curtain flapping in the breeze. Or perhaps, it had been simply abandoned. 

The second time we went by, the door was wide open and a young girl stood in the doorway eyeing us as we slowed. Loka Banne, we asked and pointed to the sign. She only smiled. Over her shoulder, I glanced inside the house. It didn't appear to be a library at all, not anymore, but someone's home. Down the pathway that led along the side of the house, we could see old shelves lined against the building. It's not the fact that this was no longer a library that makes this story odd, but how leading up to our visit we had asked a hand full of people about it--our driver, the folks at our guesthouse, the tourist information center--and no one knew of a library or even bookshop that ever existed in this particular village. To add to the strangeness was the fact their Instagram page had only been updated a month prior. 

A fact I know all too well is that knowledge well hidden and denied is often the most potent. 

Toraja, depending on who you ask, can be translated a number of ways--people from the uplands, the north, or people from above. The Blair brothers first came to Toraja on the tail of a myth that claimed the Toraja descended from the stars, specifically the Pleiades, and that their houses were build to resemble the starships they arrived on. When the brothers asked about the myth, the people nodded. Yes, an old myth, they'd said, a dying one. The story had morphed. But it was true that they had descended from heaven to earth and will return again--the journey illustrated in the shape of their roofs.

Death is a big theme is Toraja--most everything geared toward tourists is about going to a funeral (where, yes, you will see buffalo and pigs being sacrificed), graveyards etched into the side of rock walls, or caves full of skulls and bones. And certain times of year, they bring out the bodies of the deceased to redress them. All very unusual for a region that (according to sources) claims to be mostly Christian. A number of churches scatter the region, but otherwise, nothing about the culture reflects anything remotely Christian. We asked a tour guide hanging out at our guesthouse about it. Oh, he said and smirked. It's just easier to keep our rituals alive if we say we're Christian.

In Indonesia, every citizen must be registered under one of six recognized religions--Islam, Catholic, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, or (more recently) Confucianism. In reality, they choose the one that closest resembles their region's beliefs, or perhaps more accurately, they choose the one that is the most lenient in their rules and practices, the one they can most likely get away with keeping their rituals alive while still hiding behind the veneer of an official religion. When the Blair brothers tried to talk with a tribe deep in the jungle of Papua about who the figures were on their tattoos and in their artworks, they clamped up and said: we only believe in Jesus, deep suspicion in their voices and eyes. 

Outside of one of the cave graveyards one rainy afternoon, we finally asked a guide directly: is it true the Toraja people came from the stars, from the Pleiades? He smiled and shrugged. Old myth, he said. That belief died when the last Torajan king died. No one really believes that anymore. 

Or do they? 

People have had reasons across time and space to hide their origins, to hide the truths they know and fully understand. To hide the fact they are witches, that they travel through dreams to other worlds, that they sometimes glance over their shoulder to lives they've left behind and will never speak of again. To march lockstep into a modern world not meant for them. And so they hide behind layers of prescribed beliefs, ritualistic tourism, or a story told over and over until they start to believe it themselves. 

We did not attend a sacrificial funeral. We never figured out what happened to the library though we did find another closed one--that again, no one knew anything about. But we did begin to pierce the layers of stories and piece together a different one. 

During our time in Tana Toraja, I happened to be reading The Ten Thousand Doors of January--an epic novel that embraces escapism, portals, and most of all the power of stories. Perhaps the Torajans did come through a Pleiadian portal on ships that landed them in the middle of Sulawesi island. And perhaps they have spent their lives caught between the truth and feeling the repercussions of living in a world that doesn't allow their truth to exist at all. The door to their truth permanently closed. The last of their story lingering in the pages of old books, documentaries, and those who refuse to let stories die. 

What are your thoughts on myths and legends, stories passed through time from unknown origins? Have you ever pieced together your own myth from the pieces scattered in the stars and across far flung lands?

The Turning of Autumn: A Welcoming

1. Nights become longer than days, and the late summer rains bleed into autumn keeping the air damp and sticky. When the rain stops and clouds clear, somehow the stars feel closer. My new apartment presses against the mountain range to the west keeping it cool and breezy, blowing away the day's humidity. Autumn has always been my favorite time of year--my birthday, Halloween, Samhain. The season of harvest, the season of change. The season to cast spells and burn sigils. The season to conjure magic and experience its unfolding. 

2. The letter arrived at the tail end of August while I away. I felt it coming. The writing had been on the wall all year. My job at the University here in Thailand for the past 3.5 years finally came to an end. What started as a dream job that I designed from scratch with little to no guidance degraded over the years into something I really could no longer stand--due to factors that I will not go into here. It was good for a long while until it wasn't. A blessing thrust upon me by the universe at the perfect moment. 

3. With my job behind me, my world burst open again. I will be taking this next year to fully focus on writing, reading, and ritual--all things that nourish my creativity. My first novel is still on submission which feels surreal and exciting, but also unnerving--as each stage of this process has been. The traditional publishing path, as I've mentioned before, is arduous and long. But for me, it has been a dream, and slowly, step by step, it is happening. My agent is communicative and wonderful and is fully invested in getting my book matched with the right editor / publisher. I thought about putting the second novel aside to focus on the next big thing, but I don't need to do that. I can span my writing life across many projects now. I will not squander this moment but embrace it fully and squeeze as much out of this year as I can. 

4. No longer being confined to place I began to dream about slow travel again. Chiang Mai will still be my homebase as I do have an apartment and life here, but I'll be coming and going with more fluidity. Tuning in to that subtle tug that has pulled me across the world, placing me exactly where I need to be. Next stop: Sulawesi, Indonesia--snorkeling and aliens and ancient rituals. I have a lot of new experiences lined up for this year. This is only the beginning. 

5. Autumn--when the road to everywhere opens and the possibilities feel endless. I welcome all the changes and the darkening of the days. A time of year when the sky becomes clearer and so do I. 

What does autumn represent to you? How do you welcome unexpected change into your  life? Do you embrace it or resist it? 

This post has been more of a check in with myself--where I am and where I'm going. Autumn book recommendations, slow travel and the writing process, and this blog's 10 year anniversary (TEN YEARS!) are in the works. See you all under the darkening sky. 

The Solstice Pause

The days grow long and languid, and spring memories are still strong. Spring was the season of travel and lightness, writing routines and consuming books. Island hopping around northern Raja Ampat, spending as much time in water as on land. Allowing the darkness of the previous year (and even years prior) to unstick and flow through me into the ocean where it dissolves. Coming away from that trip, the difference in my body and mind was palpable. As though I stepped onto those islands as one person, but came away a lighter version of myself. The epitome of spring.

Spring reflects an opening, a blossoming, moving into the fullest expression. Then a pause, culminating at the solstice, the longest day, the beginning of summer--living in daylight, shining a spotlight on all things hidden--the good, the bad, and everything in-between. 

And sometimes the fullest expression of what comes forward may not be the sweetest or the lightest as summer can hold heaviness too--the heaviness of heat and humidity, of monsoon rains and winds, of scorching, cloudless sky, sunburns and sticky skin. I think of driving through eastern California, brushing against Death Valley, uncontrollable forest fires, and crowded beaches. A time of year when I want to hide. But I also think of starry Wyoming skies, fierce thunderstorms, and wide open spaces. Turning my face toward the sun, allowing it to radiate and nourish me. Allowing in all the magic the solstice can bring and the summer days that follow. 

This year my summer days are filled with swimming and reading in the sun. When it comes to summer reading, many people recommend lighter reading, beach reads. Perhaps to alleviate the heaviness and heat. But I'm going to go in the opposite direction. I'm going to recommend books that lean into heaviness, the weight of summer, the way tropical humidity or desert dryness can't be lifted. And when something heavy can't be lifted, the only way through it is to lean in and sink until you come out the other side.

Books that lean into summertime heaviness so far the only way out is to sink into them:

The Beach by Alex Garland 🏝️

If you like your beach reads full of mental unraveling, hallucinations, and nightmarish utopias, this is your book. Apocalypse Now meets Lord of the Flies. It will make you think twice about seeking paradise on a far flung deserted, tropical island. The center cannot hold. It never does. 

The Lightness by Emily Temple ☸️

Like Dark Academia, but for Tibetan Buddhists. When Olivia takes off in search of her missing father at a remote monastery, she ends up at a summer Buddhist retreat for teenaged girls where she joins a secret group intent to harness the power to levitate. What could go wrong? 

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver ⛪

An American southern Baptist missionary family moves to the Congo (circa 1960) and pushes their religion and ways of life into the village and onto the people. Insanity ensues. The story spans from their arrival through the devastating aftermath of it all. 

A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit 💫

A meditative exploration on the meaning of lost--getting lost, losing things, the familiar falling away. Can we lose something we never knew we had to begin with? Can we find something that we don't know exists? A meandering journey toward the unreachable, distant blue of the horizon. 

As we sit here at the far edge of earth's tilt and pause, do you surrender to the lightness or to the heaviness? 

What is on your list to read this summer? Do the stories you read move you toward the airy, lightness of summer or the weight of its heaviness? 

Gratitude and Books

I recently returned home from spending a month in a remote area of Bali, editing and putting final touches on my novel. And a few days ago I sent them to my agent. It has been a journey and half getting here. It has taken years of patience and perseverance, a labor of love and sacrifice. It's taken failing again and again, yet not giving up on my vision and dream. Above all, I am grateful for the way it has unfolded. Timing is everything. 

In fact, I'm grateful for a lot these days in this ever madding world. And one of those things is books. Not only having the time and space to write them, but also read them. I've more than enough posts on writing and books and how they have impacted my life, so for the first time, I will write about some of my favorites, ones that I am grateful exist and what they mean to me. These are not reviews or summaries, but something more. They are about what gives the stories pulse and beauty and how they (though fiction) speak a truth that could not be told in any other way. 

Bunny by Mona Awad 🐰 Life as metaphor 

This entire novel is written as a metaphor for the creative process--at times alienating, horrific, twisted, and dark, but also playful, whimsical, clever, and a bit genius. A love letter to the imagination, Mona Awad once stated in an interview. A surreal and messy experience from start to finish. To live creatively can feel like this a lot of the time, at least for me when I'm deep into a project. But why would I want it to be any other way? Life is surreal and messy, but also achingly beautiful. I take it all in. I write it all out. 

The Secret History by Donna Tartt 🕮 Life in the shadow of story

Donna Tartt, the goddess of dark academia, birthed a genre that makes you think about university life (and misspent youth) in an entirely new way. Our life experiences, especially when we are young, shape us whether we want to admit to it or not. No matter how much therapy or healing we might try, there are some experiences that will always haunt us, that will always live in the shadows of our life story, peering over our shoulder, waiting on us to look back. 

Richard Papen, our protagonist, sets us up for this in the prologue: I suppose at one time in my life I might have had any number of stories, but now there is no other. This is the only story I will ever be able to tell. We can either use this to our advantage or let it eat us alive. This book has taught me how to turn pain into story, into art. Take that one story, and instead of allowing it to take your life, use it to create.

Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang ॐ Life as language

Bound by language, it informs our reality including the way we experience time. Here in this reality, we use linear language and therefore experience linear time. So in this life, whether we have free will or if our lives are predetermined isn't the point. It's how we respond in every given moment, for better or worse. Even if we know the future as it moves straight toward us, we aren't going to know that experience and our reaction to it until it actually happens--like light hitting water, will it take the minimum or maximum route? 

Character Louise asks us in the end: From the beginning I knew my destination....But am I working toward an extreme of joy, or of pain? A lesson that comes up again and again--when confronted with the shocking, the confusing, the unexpected, can you take a step back and allow it come at you in slow motion?  Whether it hits in a moment of joy or pain, it can be processed and transmuted for the better. Or so I'd like to think. 

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel ∞ Life as interwoven connection

I read this book back in early April while island hopping around Raja Ampat, the eastern most region of Indonesia. Remote and cut off from the rest of the world, it made me think about how interconnected the world truly is. Part of Station Eleven takes place in a post apocalyptic world, but focuses on those intricate interconnections made prior, those connections that survived. We see these connections travel over time and place and through the different characters. And how small gestures of creativity and kindness can impact others in such a way it gets them through something apocalyptic (even a real apocalypse) and will remain long after. 

What are some books you are grateful for that have impacted your life in unexpected and beautiful ways?

The Nature of Water

I 

You can’t escape the sound of water—the ocean, the waterfalls, the fountains, the infinity pools. Caught in afternoon downpours. Glistening dew suspended on the tips of rice stalks stretched out over bright green fields. Lushness hangs in the air. Dreamy mist envelops the volcanoes, the jungle, the hidden water temples sprinkled across the island.

Five years later, I’m back on this watery island where the raw, wild energy is force to be reckoned with, snaking its way across the volcanoes, over the rice terraces, and along the narrow roadways that crisscross over the land, where I’ve been knocked to the ground, where I crawled away swearing to never return. I am back to ride its fierce, watery energy and make peace with the intense lessons I’ve had here. Because, I intuit, intense lessons bring intense healing and perception and wisdom.

II

The text sent me into an immediate panic. There appears to be a flood coming from your room, was all it said. What do you mean? I replied. Surely this was a mistake. A message sent to the wrong tenant. No reply came, so we made a mad dash from the restaurant back to my apartment. Turns out, it wasn’t mistake. At some point that day, the bidet hose exploded, causing the snake like contraption to flail wildly, spewing water everywhere for who knows how long—long enough to seep out of the bathroom, across my kitchen and living room floor, and out into the hallway of the building wrecking enough havoc a notice had to be sent to all the tenants asking about water damage.

 

The fix and cleanup turned out to be easy enough, but the fact it coincided with the day I swam my first kilometer was rather uncanny, like the universe decided I loved water that much it wanted to reward me with as much of it as possible.

***

I glide slowly and smoothly across the pool, back and forth, building momentum and strength and resilience in the water. A moving meditation. A mental cleanse. A space of fluidity. I untangle stories and rewrite them in my mind. I analyze them from different angles and perspectives and points of view, through different colored lenses and psychological landscapes. How much stories can morph when you step in and out of all the different ways to tell them astounds me. This is the steady flow of where I remain. I don’t try to solve the big problems of the world or worry about my life on land. In the water, it becomes easy to build and retain energy and strength that the world seems so intent on stealing.

 

Being in the water, living by ways of the water, I will work with water and learn from it instead of trying to control or fight against it, instead of running from its uncontrollable strength and overwhelming power.

III

I felt it coming before it fully formed—the way the tide pulled back so far and with so much strength it nearly knocked me over. Then the build of the swell that was far taller than I was sent me into a panic, so I turned my back to it and ran. The wave caught up to me and crashed at my heels, thrusting me forward faster than I could run, knocking me to the sand.

You can’t run from the waves, especially big ones, I was told. You just have to face them, hold your breath, and dive under them when they come.

 

So, there on that nearly deserted Thai island in the Andaman Sea, I learned to face the waves and dive. And once I learned the secret, I became addicted to it. Give me what you’ve got, I wanted to scream into the ocean. But, I also knew not to tempt it. Not respecting water, fearing it, and hiding from it, only feeds its strength. I needed to humble myself around it, learn from it, and work with it if I wanted to truly understand its nature. Under the water is silence and calmness. All the violence and crashing takes place on the surface. Much like meditation, I needed to go under the surface, to find the calmest place and face it. It’s the only way to come out the other side unshaken and with a sense of having surrendered and survived.

IV

The majority of my natal chart is full of water signs. I’ve spent my life navigating this world of mystical water—my flowing emotions and creative impulses, like unstoppable forces of nature. The earth is 70% water and humans 60% after all, so perhaps it’s only natural to want to understand its nature and ways. It puts out fires, it floods the earth and spreads uncontrollably, it amps up and runs wild with wind. It’s natural state is uncontrollable and free flowing. If left to stagnate, it breeds disease and cultivates sickness. It kills. Perhaps this speaks to something of my own nature as well.

***

Lying on the beach at the northern most tip of Borneo after dark with no light pollution for miles, I sank into the sand and listened. The star filled sky and roar of the ocean swallowed me. The milky way stretched across the sky. Millions of miles away from the stars. Million miles away from worry and the stresses the world creates. Somewhere floating in the liminal space. Terrifying, yet comforting. Buoyant and timeless. My natural state.

Little did I know then that my next visit to Bali not too many weeks later would leave me hospitalized with a scar etched down my forehead. Only in retrospect do I understand what it means to hold so much water (and fire) that it can lash out at any given moment, putting you in your place, demanding respect, forcing you to face its wrath when you think you have all the control.

It’s my first time back on Bali since that moment. No wonder I vowed to never return. No wonder my body had been so tense at the thought of going back. No wonder the only way to ease the discomfort is by immersing myself in water, moving with it, respecting it, dancing with it. Strengthening the navigational system I was born with.

V

Raja Ampat off the coast of Western Papua, where more life teems underwater than above it, I swim through these translucent waters with purpose and confidence, with fluidity and grace. And I face all these watery, wild islands of Indonesia the same. 

What is your relationship to water? Do you fear it? Embrace its power? Or have you been forced to face it and make peace it?

Untangled

Days after I landed in India for the third time in the past year, I untangled. 

To untangle: to free from a twisted, knotted state, to be free from perplexity, from confusion. 

All those circumstances that seemed so distressing, so confusing, so pressing, so important, only days ago, weeks ago, months ago, slid through my mind, dissolving into nothingness. Knots of anxiety untangled themselves, tightly knitted problems woven into my mind, unraveled. 

In their place, a lightness, a void, a clear path.

We awoke just before midnight and ran to the rooftop to watch the fireworks over the backwaters of Kochi. Aside from a handful of noteworthy and beautiful moments and accomplishments, I was glad to see 2024 behind me. A year of navigating stress and loss. A year of feeling too much. 

Somewhere between stillness and movement life got blurry. 

Blurry: not clearly or distinctly visible or audible, unable to perceive what is real and what is not, unfocused.

During these darkest days of the year, a surge of new energy rises. A time to recalibrate and refocus. Focus harnesses creative power, something tangible and real. An ability to create. To actualize. 

The word maya is often translated as illusion, something to rise above or see beyond. But a better, more accurate translation is artistic power. 

When I stop moving through the world and life as though it's an illusion, it becomes more vibrant, more real. I see it as a creation I can work with and immerse in. I stop making every experience something other than what it is. I stop projecting meaning onto everything and simply live. 

Early weeks of the new year were punctuated by southern Indian sunsets and meandering beach walks. Feverishly reading Han Kang and Mona Awad, afternoon writing frenzies, and endless cups of masala chai. 

Untangled, I am fearless, focused, and clear. Unrushed, with eyes wide open. 

Move through the world like you are walking a labyrinth, slow and mindful, winding your way through landscapes and colors and enchantment.

How did you navigate through 2024? What strengths did you find? What will you do differently this year? 

Traversing Landscapes & Stories

Sikkim is filled with temple secrets, sprawling tea gardens, and waterfalls that flow down mountains and over roads. It oozes untamed lands, mysterious rituals, and unspoken words hidden in the folds of everything. This land swallowed me and showed me what it means for a place to be woven with mystery, for a place to haunt you long after you leave. But that is not where this story begins.

On a high hill over looking the Batasia Loop where the toy trains make stops coming and going from the city, we sat in our room and gazed toward the hill stations scattering the landscape. And in the far distance, Mount Kanchanjanga loomed high above the clouds. We sat in the our spacious, sparse room wrapped in our warmest clothes, attempting to acclimate to the high elevation and cold temperature--from Delhi to Darjeeling in one day is bound to shock anyone's system. 

Five in the afternoon sunsets and late night dinners with the windows wide open. The alarmed looks we'd get when we asked for them to be shut. Climbing near vertical stairs that narrowly squeezed between the buildings etched into the mountainside, riding the train from the city back to our hotel as it wound around the cliffside in slow motion. 

In the afterglow of the sunset, we followed the train tracks and made our way up the steep hill to our hotel. Like the vibe of Twin Peaks, one could easily lose themselves in the ambiance, the lurking surrealness, an underbelly of strange. But this was just the edge. We hadn't even crossed over into the vast, mystifying land of Sikkim yet. 

Sikkim is a place you energetically feel and visually absorb. It's one that cultivates magic and holds secrets. And if you move slow enough and listen, it has layers of stories to tell. Themes of intrigue, meandering detours, and raw beauty dominated our entire trip. The towns, the villages, the temples, the mountains, the roads, the people all veiled behind something invisible and indescribable.

The iconography of all the Tibetan Buddhist temples throughout the state is wild enough to stir one's imagination in strange and dark directions. I think of The Lightness and the strange, dark path the characters go down as they dig deeper into the esoteric practices of Tibetan Buddhism that lead them nowhere good. I can see how and why it happened. I tend to lean into these hidden realms, exploring just far enough, but never so far as to lose myself. But Sikkim doesn't just lure you to the edge, it pushes you to the center and leaves you grasping for the familiar which is no longer there. 

Olivia's journey began as something entirely different. Much like Richard from the Secret History or Samantha in Bunny, these characters were simply on a path that led them straight into the orbit of darkness with a gravitational pull so strong they couldn't escape. As the familiar falls away, they each lose sight of their path and begin a new journey with no sign posts or memory from where they came. 

I stood in the small room at Pemayangtse Monastery and stared at the Tara covered walls. Stories of the goddess told through murals, her image ancient, yet evoking something much closer to me. In an early draft of my novel, there was a nameless minor character that stood in the background of everything happening around her. But a dear reader of that draft honed in on her and asked all the right questions. This is her story, my friend told me. This is who you are channeling. Ask her name and tell her story. By the final draft, Tara had become a far more important character than I had ever planned. 

Tara, I later learned, is commonly translated as star or planet. When I dug a bit deeper, I discovered the root of the word comes from the verb "to cross" as in to cross over as stars and planets cross the sky. Without giving too much of my story away, the name represents my character to her core. To walk into this room and see this goddess painted across the walls felt more than a coincidence. It felt inevitable. Another reinforcement that when we stop looking and forcing meaning onto everything, it simply appears. 

We crossed Sikkim from west to east and back again, hours in a car over one lane gravel roads that hugged cliff edges, moved across remnants of  avalanches where boulders were still blocking half the road, through water fall flows that cascaded down mountainsides and over the roads. Getting from point A to point B was not for the faint of heart. But the majestic untamed wildness of it with eyes wide open, proved to be a risk worth taking.

We uncovered hidden gems tucked down steep city staircases and up endless ones etched into mountainsides. Within sacred spaces and behind locked doors. In cups of chai, pages of books, inscribed along the walls of a rare Hindu temple. 

I could go on about all the wonders our trip entailed--from the mist and prayer flag covered peaks of Lake Tsomgo to getting caught up in Yuksom's local Diwali celebration that involved decorating cows and being serenaded by villagers in the night. Precarious hikes and leech attacks. Quaint bookshops and cozy libraries. But I will end with a story about ghosts and shadows.

After nearly not finding a ride out of Yuksom, we ended up on a three hour detour that landed us in  Rinchenpong--a far flung, rundown village on the edge of nowhere. Most guesthouses were shuttered and many buildings abandoned. Clouds covered the view of Kanchenjanga, and life shuffled around us as though we were ghosts floating through the town. 

One hundred years prior, Russian painter Nicholas Roerich had passed through painting some of his most well known works of the Himalayan Mountains. And not too many years before that, Rabinranath Tagore had written one of his Nobel winning poems there. It was easy to picture the place 100 years prior as not much developed over those years, a forgotten place existing in the shadow of the mountains, haunted by what was or what could have been, where people pass through and feel the distances between. We didn't linger too long, and being in our most remote, off the beaten track destination, we were once again nearly stuck. 

But we did eventually find our way out and made our way to Kalimpong where we rested and recovered and gazed northward toward the mountains and the vast land we had traversed. 

Unlike the characters in The Lightness or my character Tara, I've crossed back from somewhere otherworldly with stories and impressions that I carry with me. These days I'm not so sure I ever fully cross from point A to point B, but continue to traverse layers of places and stories and people, including myself.

As we cross into this new season and into the new year, what will you carry over with you? What ghosts and shadows will you shed or choose to embrace? Or will you simply traverse the complex layers of this raw and wild universe again and again?