Tag: Travel

Hope, Regrets, Pain, Joy,

Past and Future

It seems wherever I have travelled to temples, shrines, synagogues, churches, caves, cathedrals, the search and teachings are pretty much universal.

Humility, Hope, Grace, Acceptance, Community.

And today was another privilege and expansion of experience

As Manal and Bolormaa invited us to join them on their

annual New Year visit to The Temple.

Fascinating to learn how the temples survived the soviet era, or of course, in many cases did not, and were resurrected subsequently.

The detail in the curtain

The skill in the carvings

The colours against the backdrop

The sense of symmetry

The deceptive sense of solitude

Undone as we walked through the curtain

to a world of noise, prayer, movement, colour,

and at the same time strange solitude

as everyone was

focussed inwards

Sensory overload would be one way of describing this morning.

Awe, Voyeuristic, Intrusive, Communal, Humbled

are all words or rather feelings that came to me

as I joined in the procession sometimes on my own,

sometimes alongside a fellow traveller,

of the spiritual or literal kind.

I will leave some images here,

perhaps through them, simple as they are,

you too could join me on this privileged journey.

And just to remind me of the strangeness of our ‘New World’

These photos

Walking up to the temple, a Mercedes Benz pulled up;

and an elegant man got out, put his monk robes on and walked up

and into the temple.

And the privilege of this morning did not end there.

We did not go with the family to the Shaman – it was an overnight trip.

But we were shown their visit,

for anyone interested.

A glimpse into the Mongolian world.

The Sharman and his home

Supplication

Mongolian gold, faith, hopes and life

and that was just the morning!!!

The afternoon visits are a whole story in themselves.

Watch this space……