Buddhist Himalayas~

On the winter solstice just passed, a most cherished and beautiful friend gave me a most cherished and beautiful book.   She gave me a picture book, filled with many photographed pages of Tibetan people, living their prayerful and dedicated lives in the Buddhist Himalayas. The book is over an inch thick and is mainly photographs, although there are some words, carefully chosen to give the readers a deeper explanation of the beauty their eyes are beholding.  

And yesterday, in the morning, while the snow continued to pour from the sky, I lit a candle, poured a cup of tea, and opened this beautiful new book.  And after looking into the faces of a people who have suffered so greatly, and lived in such difficult circumstances, for such a long time, I was amazed at their remarkable capacity to smile like the sun, to hold onto sacred strands of beads with hands that still know how to pray, to look out upon the world with eyes that seem to know a kind of peace.  

And there is a chance that I have romanticised these images, that I have made assumptions about these people that may not be entirely accurate, but if I have done, it is okay with me, because what I felt in my heart when I closed the book, was very real, and it had something to do with  prayer, and an all consuming belief in something that can only be articulated as love.

Images by: Oliver and Danielle Follmi