Ecstatic Chanting at Omega Institute

Sunday May 11, 2008 10 a.m.
Omega Institute, Rhinebeck NY

Enjoying the afterglow of last night’s wonderful chanting and music here at Omega’s first annual springtime Ecstatic Chant weekend in upstate New York. I’ve been playing Omega’s autumn Ecstatic Chant weekends for years now (except two years ago when I went out to Burning Man for Labor Day weekend instead, but that’s another story)—initially with Krishna Das and the last several years with Shyamdas too. Super great gathering of musicians and bhaktas and good hearted folk. The all night kirtans are a highlight of the fall gathering—last night only went until around 3 a.m.

Snatam Kaur, Jai Uttal, Shyamdas—so much sweet devotion around this weekend…

Flip Flop Lila

Sara's been insisting that we share this little footwear meltdown from the side of the Jaipur>Delhi freeway. Sigh. What can I say? Having had my killer American flip flops disappear mid-trip (while worshipping at a temple all day, of all places), I was trying my best to make do with the really low-qual sandals usually available in India--and precious few in my size, to boot.

Later in Delhi, I lucked out and found some $10 flips that really fit me comfily--but at the time of this roadside video, I feared I was stuck with these heinous, too-tight, $1 chappals for the remainder of my long road trip. Watching myself accidentally destroy these wretched sandals was a depressing moment--Sara's laughter notwithstanding.

Back to the Old Sod

Tuesday April 29, 2008
A timeless afternoon at 35,000 feet altitude
Somewhere between Amsterdam and New England

Nine weeks later, home is on the way. It is light out, and I am sitting in the first row of this old 757 flying west across the Atlantic Ocean. I’m taking a break from a tear-jerking love and death movie, P.S. I Love You, and mulling over the sudden changes in landscape from the India-Afghanistan-India-Europe trek, a tour which will land me in springtime Leverett Massachusetts in another three or four hours. Life moves fast these days—unnaturally so, and some part of body and mind take their own time to catch up. There’s often a funny quality of surreal netherworldliness in the first days of our sudden presence in a realm previously hidden by extreme distance and inaccessibility. Here we go.

We landed at Amsterdam’s Schippol Airport around 7 a.m., and with the next flight at 1 p.m. decided to take the metro into town for a grey morning’s amble in my namesake town, A’dam (that abbreviation is everywhere around Amsterdam, making me feel oddly at home). Tonight and tomorrow the Dutch celebrate Queen’s Day—everywhere town was festive with orange balloons and streamers (the House of Orange, don’t you know), though mostly the town was slowly rising at 8 a.m. The friendly cobblestone streets, quirky beautiful architecture and sight of the houseboats hugging the walls of Amsterdam’s canals tugged at my heart like they always do there—there’s just something so livable and aesthetically pleasing and, well, civilized about the Netherlands. Even the airport, as much as I’ve heard people diss it, seems well-designed and speckled with high culture—there was a mini-Rijks Museum exhibit with a dozen or so original Vincent Van Gogh paintings on display about 100 yards from our boarding gate—when was the last time you saw original Master’s art hanging in an airport?

I had a nice surprise as I was finally checking into the flight queue back at the airport—my brain, after some initial resistance, finally allowed me to hear what for a moment had been sounding so unlikely: someone calling out my name in the terminal. Turns out my good friend Monique, a Dutch national who’s been a Leverett neighbor and friend for years, was calling out to me from the check-in line. Small world: Monique and her eldest son Remer—somehow 18 already and basically bigger than me—are on my flight back to New England, after spending 8 days on the old sod checking out various Universities for him to begin next fall. Remer has settled on the University at Maastricht, which Monique described as a wonderful little mini-Amsterdam and a terrific place to go to school. Lucky man, Remer—what a wonderful opportunity to be a curious student and citizen of the world.

And with that, the journey home begins its final leg.

And in the Third Month Comes Return

Sunday April 27, 2008 2:48 p.m.
Delhi National/Domestic Airport

OK, the always frazzling final Delhi work stretch is completed: we are now cooling our heels at the airport waiting for our flight down to Mumbai, where our return on Northwest Airlines departs tomorrow night back to the states via A’dam (Amsterdam).

Since we returned from Afghanistan it has been more than 40-42 degrees centigrade in Delhi, or way above 100F—brutal. I wilt in this kind of weather—I do not know how people live in heat like this for months at a time. I suppose it’s partly the heat, partly the final wave of non-doing that is just beginning to settle upon me after pretty much 60 straight days of major doing (not counting a couple days here and there in sick bay). But I feel spent—utterly drained of energy, totally ready to come home. Or already be home, really, but first there’s 50+ hours of travel to endure, including the upcoming 24 hour Mumbai window. After all this travel, I guess another couple days shouldn’t be too bad. I’ll just keep holding the vision of strolling barefoot in the fresh growing grass back at Tree Toad Farm.

Upon arriving home, the next wave of the trip unfolds: the months of reviewing and editing footage to develop some finished video pieces from the journey. The idea is to integrate a lot of this work into the new Dharma Boutique web shop/adventure site that I am working on for a summertime launch—so it will be a busy season once I get home. A little time to decompress sounds good first, though.

Sara’s heard about some kind of evening reception on May 1st in New York, something regarding Afghanistan and photo-journalism—given our most recent adventures there, it would seem like a room we should perhaps be in. Though pulling that off barely 48 hours after we land seems a tad harsh to me. But we’ll see. The journey continues…

Sara has a post on her blog about Shira the Lion Cub of Mazar-e-Sharif—if you’re up for a good cry and some sweet photos, you can find them both there. Once I get to a semi-fast web connection, I’ll also try to throw some photos up here on some of the posts where I’ve been frustrated in uploading photos. But for now, there’s more cute puppy photos than you can throw a stick for right here:
http://www.sarakarl.blogspot.com/

But, now that our flight to Mumbai has been delayed by some unknown measure of time, I think I’ll first just lie down on the tile floor and pass out for a couple days.

Love and Death; or, Time to Go Home

Wednesday April 23, 2008 2:21 p.m.
Delhi, Hindustan

It’s hard to write now, because the tears are still filling up my eyes and rolling down my cheeks. One of the many things left unwritten in recent days has been Sara’s, and to a lesser extent my own, adoption of a sick and tiny little puppy in Mazar-e-Sharif and subsequent adventure of trying to heal her up and bring her back to the states with us. She really was an amazing little pup: a sag-e-jangi, or Afghan fighting dog, she had already had her ears and tail cut off, while being bred to engage in the local blood sport of dog fighting. Yet she had a composure I’ve rarely seen in any animal, human or otherwise. When, after buying her freedom from the proprietors of the Mazar Hotel for the cost of 100 Afghanis (or $2 US, plus $2 for a little blue towel to swaddle her with), it was time to drive 10 hours during the heat of the day down into Kabul, she barely blinked the whole ride through—just relaxing and enjoying the ride as a chance to catch up on her rest and relaxation. Whenever she needed to do her business, she’d either give us a little whimper or just hop out of her little travel pouch and do her thing outside—and then climb back into bed.

Sara named her Shira, after shir which is the Dari word for “lion,” and shirac, the word for lion cub. The poor little thing was suffering from malnutrition, some sort of nasty intestinal illness (gastroenteritis, one vet said) which made her pass blood in her diarrhea, spent a fair amount of time either throwing up or otherwise writhing in bodily discomfort, and we picked more than half a dozen ticks off of her over 2-3 days—they just kept appearing. Conrad, and many others, were convinced she would indeed outweigh Sara herself within 2 years, and likely be close to as tall—these sag-e-jangis are huge, I guess. Meanwhile, she was the mellowest and most adorable thing that side of the Hindu Kush.

Shira died today, about an hour ago. Sara, miraculously, had gotten all her papers and shots and vet stuff in order, we flew her smoothly through customs from Kabul to Delhi, and it seemed like the toughest part was behind us. Just as we had gotten her to the veterinary clinic, figuring we’d check her in for 2-3 days of rehydrating and nourishing and medical attention to get her healthier and ready for the trip to the states, she passed away in Sara’s arms while I was across the road buying the medicines and supplies the clinic needed in order to treat her. Maybe… if the taxi driver had stayed and waited like he said he would rather than making us search 15 minutes for a new ride after dropping off our luggage at the guest house; if we hadn’t been the last people to get our luggage off the flight; if the vet clinic had had any supplies in stock, rather than making each animal’s parents buy and deliver everything necessary, including the IV tubes, the betadaine and every last item that took me 30 minutes to find and buy while Sara waited with Shira at the clinic—maybe; maybe, maybe, maybe she might have lived.

But, she did not live. While I thought she was with us for a period of healing and rejuvenation and new life, and saw her health challenges in that light, in reality I guess she came to us in order to die. After probably 4-6 weeks of mostly motherless infancy, eating bread and being eaten by fleas and ticks, losing her tail and ears at the hands of those who wanted to breed her into a fighting machine, she discovered us and we all fell in love. She came with us and had several days of love and snuggling and kindness and encouragement, and just when we got her from the vet in Kabul to the vet in Delhi, she passed away. Ouch.

Shir-e-Mazar, the little Lion Cub of Mazar-e-Sharif, has left behind her mortal coil. I’m more beside myself with grief than I could have imagined possible only a few days ago. I guess I haven’t really let myself begin to love a dog like this since Gemma, our beloved greyhound, who was like an angel incarnated into the hell of dog racing and rejuvenated by the love of my partner Caroline, and the love of my own heart. I feel crushed, Sara is crushed, and sadness fills the suddenly steamy air of Delhi.

I know life goes on, and there is so much to feel grateful for. But man, the last thing I want to do now is stay in Delhi for several roasting hot days and finish dealing with money and shipping details for getting my goods en route to the USA. I just want to be home, and take a bath and stare out at springtime’s renewal in a million shades of green, and roam barefoot in my back meadow, and see my friends and family, and rest. I feel like I’ve lived through several epochs in just the last two months. I’m wrung out. I’ve found some amazing items to bring home, seen parts of the planet never seen before by me, and lived through adventures large and small. Now, it’s time to go home.

Almost.

A weekend in Balkh & Mazar-e-Sharif

Tuesday April 22, 2008 8:05 a.m.
Back in Kabul Afghanistan

Well, so much for flying to Delhi last week. We just couldn’t drag ourselves away yet from this first engagement with Afghanistan—so we changed our tickets (at no cost, thank you Afghan air travel system) and went exploring furthur into the Afghan hill country. Nothing like 20+ hours of driving to get a quick hit of a place.

We launched on a fantastic weekend road trip north of Afghanistan across the Salang Pass high country into Mazar-e-Sharif with our favorite Zuhaak driver, Said. It’s a solid nine to ten hour drive from Kabul up to Mazar, even with not many stops made along the constantly incredible terrain. We traversed numerous landscapes and colorful stone canyons and had a wonderful time leaving Kabul far behind. Landing in Mazar-e-Sharif after dark, we had a mellow night of it, deciding with some regret not to join the several folks from TMF who had also driven up that morning—Tommy, Jila and Constance—as they left the following dawn to visit and meet with an archeologist working a nearby site where, quite possibly, Alexander the Great met and married Roxanne here in the farthest reaches of the Greek empire. It sounded just staggering, and right near a place called the healing spring too. We tried to visit later but our driver had heard of security concerns and didn’t want to bring us there.

I stayed back to deal with some necessary e-mail business, sorting out details of a selection of vintage Uzbek and Tajik textiles I’ve been sourcing for my former employer ABC Home in New York. By late morning we headed out to meet our TMF friends in Balkh—a wonderful quiet little town evincing little hint of its former glories: stomping ground of Alexander and Roxanne, birthplace of Zoroaster, and the place where the mystic poet Rumi grew up until age twelve when he and his family fled the incoming Mongol hordes. We searched for Rumi’s family house, or what was left of it, and before finding it we were led first to an amazing ancient decomposing domed mosque, where we feasted on ripening fresh mulberry fruits, a first for me. After prying ourselves away from that gorgeous building, we eventually found it: the old mud walls comprising the remains of the Rumi family domicile. We found a group of more than a dozen local kids running around, unusually friendly and engaging, though many were girls and hence usually much more reserved.

There’s too much to express right now—having landed back in Kabul, it is now time to finish up everything: FedEx’ing these textiles to America, finishing up my buying here with a few pieces of Afghan lapis jewelry and another stellar batch of great vintage textiles. I’m particularly delighted by a stylish collection of incredible embroidered boots (unbelievable!) and velvet and vintage textile vests and “cosmic smoking jackets” that I scored in the last couple days—I can’t wait to have a little “Afghan goodies” sale after I get home and all these goods arrive—way cool!

OK, time to get up and enjoy the last day here in Afghanistan. More details, and photos, later…

Mountains of Textiles and Mixed Feelings

Wednesday April 16, 2008 7:45 a.m.
Turquoise Mountain Foundation Compound
Kabul Afghanistan


Well, my heart is a jumble of mixed emotions these days. On the one hand, I feel turned slightly inside out by the whole experience of being here in Kabul, and being at the end of this road trip I’m feeling my desire to be home again, in my own backyard. And, I’m pretty much out of money, and I need to re-focus on finishing my work in India and getting my goods out of Delhi and on to Boston. On the other hand, I feel like while I am here I want to enjoy more of the amazing possibilities for exploration that this country possesses in such abundance—including road trips west to Bamiyan and Herat near the Iranian border, north to the mountainous Salang Pass and over to Mazar-e-Sharif and so much in between.

Also, I am just hitting my stride in the hunt for goods here, at least vintage textile-wise. Affordable decent handicrafts are still tough to find so far, but I’ve spent the last several days searching deep in the dusty stacks of an increasing handful of small shops just bursting to the seams with chappans (the overcoats that Hamid Karzai is rarely seen not wearing over his shoulders), red onion- and pomegranate-dyed silk scarves from Herat and Mazar, various hand-embroidered textiles from Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and the heavily Tajik and Uzbek areas of northern Afghanistan, and these super funky embroidered boots that I’ve scored a nice collection of. Too much great stuff! I wish I had another five or ten thousand dollars and a couple more weeks to spend here…

But, I suppose all good things come to an end, someday. Everyone here says “you’ll be back—everyone who comes here gets it in their bones and returns, don’t worry.” But I don’t know if I’ll ever have again the kind of friendly support structure that Jenny and the good folks here at Turquoise Mountain have offered us during these last weeks. And I know how hard it can be to make it back to some great place across the other side of the planet after we’ve once again gotten swept back into what seems to make sense at home. And who knows how the political and social situation in Afghanistan develops from here—it may never again be as easy to head into the hills here as it is right now, this next week.

So it’s not without a somewhat heavy heart and sense of missed opportunity that I prepare to enjoy my last two days here in Kabul and return to Delhi at dawn on Friday. But there’s also no mistaking that the last couple of weeks have been a Grade A experience of something truly new to me, coming here to a place virtually nobody I know has ever been to and seeing the post-Taliban, post-everything Afghanistan with my own eyes. I can’t wait to get into the film editing mode and put some of this footage together so you can check out a slice of this place as well.

Anyway, time to get geared up for the day. I need to return this bogus “Nokia” phone I bought the other day (which nobody can hear me speak on) and then try to find a different vintage textile market area that I heard about yesterday—as well as find boxes to ship these goods home. I didn’t realize finding boxes was going to be a three day affair! But welcome to Kabul, 2008.