Nov early - Struggling to blog (Gansu trip)

Struggling today with loneliness and confusion. Almost every other day my life is filled with new faces, more familiar faces or conversations with old friends. But today I'm in the apt I'm sharing with a body/face painter - but she'll be moving out in 2 days and will take a huge amount of fire and energy with her. Then I'll be alone in this big place! She's gone today and I told myself that I'd catch up with the blog and try to get organized for the next step. I've had such a constantly full and rich life on this trip that having a down day is a noticeable downer. So to pick myself up, I'll just write and add the occasional great photo.

News flash first - Ripley is going to be on the lift line staff at Alta for most of the winter months (a dream forever!) Starts in mid Nov and then to the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic in early March. The drum beat is beginning and I'm so proud of him. So if you're headed for Alta during the holidays, try to look up Ripley Carlson as you climb on a lift (who knows which one). And if you're lost on a trail at the end of a day, he is one of the sweepers and will find you. All is well! (I'm told he is a "liftee" by title, but to my mind that's the person going up and the lifter would be the one helping. - so with the prerogative granted to me as his Mother - I henceforth and forever more, change his title to that of UP-LIFTER to which his response is, "Oh Mo-o-om!"

Perhaps the most unlikely news is that I've just turned fifty. On a recent trip I was thinking about what being 70 feels like. Well, I didn't have the energy to easily climb a 1500 ft sand dune, but I did everything else and kept up with everyone. But the more I'm with younger people, the more I notice that we have a lot in common and occasionally my perspective gives a new view for someone, but most of the time I'm sitting in amazement at the visions and accomplishments of all my new friends. So on this week long trip into the deserts of western China, I decided to acknowledge my age as 50 - and here is my birth photo! Taken at a part of the Great Wall in Gansu Province near Jiayuguan Fort ( a major transportation and defense fortress) Even now the Chinese Space Launching Center is only ~100 Km away.

The dune I didn't climb (but went up on a bactrian camel instead!) is in the background of this next photo set. It is profound and majestic. It is called Singing Sands Mountain because of the sound of the sand particles as they blow against each other. Thousands of people were on the slopes - trudging up - and racing down. interestingly no one had a sled - but everyone had spats (and they sure kept the sand out.) It's quite a trudge to walk in sand this fine. People told me that near the top they were hauling on all fours. I think I could have done it but at the risk of getting to the top the next day!! :~)) But they got to watch the sun go down from the rim. The little boys were with our group too and they were fortunate to get a ride.

The scheduling of this day was too tight - with 3-400 AD Buddhist caves and decorated meditation rooms in the morning and the dune in the afternoon. My absolute favorite frescos were of apsaras (buddhist and hindu goddesses of wind and water) and here, for your pleasure are the flying apsaras!!

I have no validation, but to me these say "ribbon dance" and I wonder if these very paintings influenced the dancers of the time, so that now there are spectacular ribbon dancers as at the Olympic Opening Ceremony.

This trip was important to me in a lot of ways. Besides being a fascinating view of a very different part of modern day, fast developing China, I had a new view of myself. I feel younger, more at peace, more open, less apprehensive, less shame/blame, less fear. I'm relating to people more directly, more spontaneously. I can feel my energy spreading out like an invisibility cloak - or maybe an apsaras ribbon! - and touching the energy of other people. When I feel the contact, somehow out there, I bless it and do a bit of Reiki. I've noticed that people seem to like to be around me and want to. So - an important awareness!




 

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