I took a series of panoramas over the last few years, and I want to share them. I feel they can help convey at least one thing which is hard to communicate about Ladakh: the incredible scale of the land and mountains.
This first one is from the rooftop of our tiny home in Tar’s Gongma valley.
This one is from 2019 in the new village the people of Tar are creating, near the Indus, called the Thang (the Plain). This new village is connected to the national highway by a metal bridge over the Indus. It is also connected to a dirt road along slopes and cliffs that winds 5 km up the steep-sided Tar valley, ending within a kilometer or two of Tar village.
Many more houses, saplings, and gardens have been planted since this photo. The Thang provides an intermediate living space between Tar and the hubs of Khaltse and Leh, where many of Tar’s children go to school six days a week.
This is the Phu (high pasture) in late August. When I took this, I stood maybe 6 km and 2000 vertical feet above Tar (on the Mangyu lam).
This is the area where the dzo live and eat and drink the clear snowmelt water and protect each other all summer from snow leopards and wolves.
Here is late May in Phey village, just down the Sengye Tsangspo (Indus River) from Leh (about 70 km up the river from Tar). This photo is from the top of Palay House, a large ancestral home beautifully refinished by caretakers from outside Ladakh who are creating a space for courses in traditional architecture, art exhibitions, artist residencies, and a holistic study of history, craft, and culture.
Following the path of the skyin (ibex) and schan (snow leopard) led me up this ledge from Tar. This spot overlooks both Tar village (in the cleft on the left side) and the limestone cliffs that form both sides of the gorge that protects and separates Tar from the outside world.
Early September at Pangong Tso. The 130+ km long lake surface lies at above 14,000 feet. Our friend Dadul and his ancestors have lived near this body of water for countless generations.
These next three images are from February 2024, one of the few times that year I found enough rest and summoned the energy to climb the ridges around Tar and the Gongma. I saw fresh hare tracks near this ridgetop, and even 3000 feet above Tar the February sun was heating rocks and melting snow.
Look at the black peak in the center. To its left, you can see much of the high parts of Tar’s watershed. To its right, you can see the Indus valley and the south-facing lower slopes of the Ladakh Range, across the river from the mountains where I stand.
The snowy Gongma valley (where we live) can be seen here, way down at the right foot of the ridge in the center of this image. Notice the two peaks (left of center) which are called the Numa (breasts), and the darker peak to their right called Gundum Drak. Sibskyang Lu is just to the right of Gundum Drak, and Tar village lies between these two. And again, all the white peaks and slopes in the right side of the frame are Tar’s watershed and Phu (high pastures).
This view is from much lower, but still towering above the valley. The Gongma is the valley on the left, and Tar is the dry valley with trees in the center. Tar’s gorge, where the stream exits the valley, is in the sharp shadowy cleft to the right of the village between limestone cliffs. Just above the depths of those shadowy slashes you can see the Yokma, Tar’s lower village, which now has dirt road access. Back on the left half of this image, the dark, dry ridge and peaks are Gundum Drak and the Numa behind them, all lined up, from this view. Just to their left is the snowy peak I was on when I took the two previous panoramas.
And finally, here is an image of Wabanaki homelands from this past October, the land and waters near where Caitlin and I each were born and raised, and where we met years later. These lands are home to Penobscot and Passamaquoddy people, and have been for countless generations. The abundance and beauty of low lands rich with water, stands here in contrast with the roof of the world, yet common threads weave between these places, threads of rich culture, craft, hospitality, and deep connections with the elements and all living beings.
We got really stirred up when we first returned from Ladakh in 2016. Our history as invading people of New England (a name that both aids and erases genocide) slapped us in the face. Our grief at the ongoing harms and attacks against native people, parallel with the resistance at Standing Rock, filled us and wrenched our guts with the injustice.
The American denial of this history, and our blindness to the horrors on which our nation is built, have paved the way for horrific aggression against Africa, against countless first nations of the West, against Korea, against Vietnam, against Iraq and Afghanistan, and now once again against Palestine. We should take a hard look at our history, learn about our home the earth, build networks of true mutual aid, and defund to whatever extent we can the machine that continues to dominate the airwaves and generate exploitation and war.
Please do not think that a wealthy nation and its citizens are clean. The full effects of nation-building should be considered, and nations are often built on death and destruction. Can we trust the ultra-wealthy, who control the media, to manufacture for us the drug, the food, the vehicle, the building material, the beauty product, the weapon that makes the bad thing go away?
What is essential, and what is truly needed? Can the true need for healing of people and land and water generate policy and governance? Can these needs inspire our choices and move our resources? We are mere human beings: we have a lot to consider and wrestle with and feel and heal if we want a healthier world. There are small choices available to us all. Maybe some of you reading this can help me understand how the bigger choices get made.
We’re taking a cue from our Ladakhi relatives and Wabanaki relatives: begin with relationship. We have small trusted circles here in Ladakh, and small trusted circles in Wabanakik. How do our aspirations and efforts as communities in dialogue reach out from here?
What if some Ladakhi friends are freely choosing to leave aside the nourishment these mountains have provided them; to leave aside the practices their ancestors have perfected. What will these friends gain and how will they change? To what extent is the myth of backwardness and progress driving things here in Ladakh? How does it affect each of us? Can human separation from our relatives, the lands and waters, bring “progress”? Is there a way toward a healthy global future without a large percentage of people creating healthy families, in deep connection with lands and waters?
As humans with families, it can be unbelievably hard to do anything other than see to our pressing basic needs.
And: we humans are not in control. Our bodies and minds are just earth, air, fire, and water. The elements have us at their mercy.