Approaching the gongma (upper village). Our home is up this valley.
Yearling snow leopard tracks…
The chuli orchard holds us like a spell.
Old purple-brown trunks, the bark of new growth even in winter flushed red and gold, spines erupting all over.
The trees stand on meadowy terraces beneath a gray-purple rockslide with cliffs above.
Their channels for irrigation are bounded by low ridges of chips of piled slate. It all faces south and soaks up the sun.
These days, when we need wood, I feel so drawn to approach these trees – fifty or sixty of them on three contoured terraces – and ask for their excess branches and trunks. Whatever has broken in the wind and hangs down, or even whole thick limbs that have been pruned with an ax and the tree has shunted nourishment away elsewhere. In places the resin has emerged and collected in orange globes, hardened in the parched air. But often in the summer we leave the water-gates open, and the roots of these trees drink their fill.
Skyin (Himalayan Ibex) in the Orchard
We sit over there beneath the trees on the open terrace. In the winter, it’s the warmest place, and our minds rest while we’re there, finding focus on our breath and the sensations of our bodies, the memories and feelings that flow through us, and the stones and peaks and the flighted beings that land in the orchard or fly across the gulf of the valley, high above us, leaving their cries behind.
It gives me such pleasure to see Jason and Caitlin watching the apricot trees blooming and the skyin feeding under them this spring. With less goats and sheep grazing there, I wonder if there is more food for the skyin? Absorbing these pictures, which I will watch over and over, is the next best thing to being there with you. Thank you so much for the work you’ve done in taking, arranging and posting these amazing photos, so we can see and feel some of what your life is like.
It’s our pleasure, and a good part of life to share about these blessings.