A Peruvian Man’s Philosophy of Death

Today I watched an interesting film on a particular 30 day healing place deep in the Amazon jungle of Peru.  It was an hour or so long and it was very interesting, http://www.thesacredscience.com/screening_watchnow,   and sent to me by a friend from France.  I think aside from the very impressive young man who has chosen to follow his father instead of his peers, I most enjoyed the part where the Peruvian narrator canoed on a tributary of the Amazon and had this to say;

What is death?

What is life?

Life without death has no meaning.  Wherever there is life there is death.

And we can not hide from it.

Death is a change, a process.  it is necessary for life.

Western Societies have demonized death. But why? Due to fear and ignorance.  Because, there is something to be afraid of after death?

What is it?

What is God?

They are truly afraid of God, and he is life itself.

So they stay away from death and by doing so they stay away from life as well.

I thought it was very thought provoking.  Think about it.  I will let you add to the meaning of each sentence above, as you think about what he said.  I watch some of my friends, because we are all on the later side of life, and some are afraid to die because of this, or that reason, they will miss out on this or that, or to wherever their thoughts take them.  But to have lived this long and this well, if you have truly enjoyed your life then well the next adventure should take the cake! Especially when you can ride off into the sunset with a view like this.  P.S. let me know if you still can’t see the photo.

Before We Leave Mysterious Siberia

 

This was intended for October 12th post. But I won’t be able to post then, so here it is today.  I just want to leave you with a few images of this beautiful place before we move on.  On to what I am not sure, but I think something will fall into place.  But for now, we attended a farmers market in Novosibirsk and it was, to say the least, spectacular.  The colors, the people, the faces, the spices, the vegetables and fruits all just waiting to go home, or to the store. Of course, I could not remember where they were from so I had to check with my friend Dimitri he said ” with majority of supplies including those peppers carried there from Central Asia (former republics within USSR, like Tajikistan or Turkmenistan, or Kazakhstan. Close to Afghanistan, so to speak).”  See you don’t need to keep all the information in your head!  Just be sure that your friendship cabinet stays full of the friends you do things with and they will remind you of where you have been and what you have done and what you have seen. Jackie that is a note for you. It is especially helpful if they are younger than you, even by just a few years.  But as usual I am just running on.  So I want to leave you with a few more photos of Siberia.  And, yes Rick, I am going to do as you suggest, I hope.

 In the countryside, as in the city, life is the palate of color coming in many forms and shades to the eye.               

               

                

This “church complex is close to Hydro station, just across on the opposite side (left bank of the Ob river). This one is a newly built, it was not there when communists ruled the country.”  I quote from Dimitri again.  But I can assure you the golden domes in winter must command attention.
               

In this vast and mysterious country color springs forth from the earth;  even when in September as the countryside gets ready for winter when snow will start to blanket the ground, even then, as in winter, color stands above the ground.  I believe that Luba told me, if I remember correctly, that color on homes and places in the winter is intensified against the whiteness of the snow.  Or, maybe, I made that up in my imagination, but in the dark recesses of my mind I think she did tell me that.  But either way.  I can envision it.  Mysteries, not all of them can be solved!  Take for instance the photo below…we will never know what mysterious thing caught their attention in the land of Siberia.  Just thoughts from the day.

Thinking of Siberia

Yesterday, I left you with a photo without telling you what it was.  Well it is a typical street view in Academia City.  What a treat! Siberia that is.And I will tell you another secret, well I  would have told you another secret, but the phone rang and the conversation lasted longer than expected, so of course, being in retirement puts me at a certain age, I am trying to collect my memory and see if I can tell you what the secret was! AH HA! I know what it was.  Look closely at these photos.

Of course you have to remember I am not a photographer, like my friend Opi in Switzerland www.copi.ch , he is  amazing, he thinks amateur, but I will let you be the judge of that! But again I digress.  Back to my thoughts.  If you look very closely at the faces of these wonderful people, you will see fantastically beautiful skin.  Now if Opi had taken the photos you would actually see that.  But I wanted just to say while they live in a very cold climate, I was amazed at the beauty of the skin of all ages.  I guess the cold preserves.  I think I will move to Siberia, although it might already be too late for me.  But you never know.

 

Well now I want to leave you with a couple of more photos here.  This was the botanical garden.  Different from the botanical Garden in Santa Barbara, California.  One of my best friends wanted to show me the garden there when she lived there. It was to be a great outing.  I drove down to visit her and she was so excited to go, so off we went to the Santa Barbara Garden.  I don’t have a photo of that, well because the year that we visited the garden, it was totally dead.  Drought!.  But it gives us a good laugh when we think about it so I have thrown in the garden in Siberia because I want to remind my friend to see a real botanical garden.

Ok, well, see this really is just a little of something of interest.  At least a venue for me to start. Who knows maybe I will say something profound.  I hope this has given you another vision of Siberia.  Hopefully one you had not expected. Until we meet again.  Who said that?

Siberia

When one thinks of Siberia, at least one in the USA, one might think of desolate, isolated, bitter cold, banishment.  Well those were my thoughts growing up.  But few people are as lucky as I have been and I know different!  Born with the heart of a gypsy, I have traveled to 58 different countries.  I am truly blessed.  I don’t stay in American chain hotels, I stay in local hotels or with friends cultivated over the years and enjoy people because I want to feel the experience, not observe.  What I have found, over the years, that in every country from Siberia to the fields of India to the tip of Tasmania to the mountains of Chile to the wilds of Alaska and far beyond, all people are alike.  They want one thing.  To live their lives in peace and be happy.  It is only politicians and governments that crave something else.  This is not a political blog.  Just a blog, well about nothing really, just little things of life.

Beyond those thoughts I am blessed with friends from many countries which have enriched my life in ways that I would never have expected and can never repay. One of which are Dimitri and Tatiana, my friends from the Ukraine. They are not my only friends in Kiev, but I am just talking about them and Siberia at this moment.  I met Dimitri on a flight from Budapest to Kiev in December 1990.  We formed a special friendship which last to this day.  He as a beautiful wife Tatiana, and he asked if he could bring her to meet me while I was on my stay in Kiev.  That was the beginning of visits in both directions for us. They have two sons, grown now and doing very well.  But I digress.

What I started out to say is – that Dimitri was Russian and from Siberia.  WOW!  While visiting him a few years ago we decided to head off to Siberia.  We flew to Moscow, where I have been before, and then on to Novosibirsk, Siberia.  Here in the far out land of Academia City lives Nicholas, Dimitri’s brother, and his open and giving wife Luba and kids Alexy and Helen. So today and tomorrow and maybe the next I will share with you, while trying to figure out what to do with my retirement time, some photos of the most peaceful and beautiful country. Not much text but photos.  Considering I am the photographer, have mercy.

I will start with my Friend Dimitri without whom this trip would have still been on the “to go” list, well maybe not, but because he is from there, well – why not.  And Tatiana, my dear friend whom my fondest memory is sitting on the patio of the lodge in Yosemite California (California is where I lived at the time, but not Yosemite) deep in conversation about the expense of things in the USA, a conversation I will never ever forget.  The cost of a drink would feed a family for a week, (and she felt bad about having the drink) at that time in Ukraine; I owe my deepest gratitude to Tatiana for letting Dimitri escort me on my trip into the land of “Dr. Zhivago”.  And if you don’t know who that is, well you are missing something interesting in life. Little things of interest.

   In night in Moscow before next day trip to Siberia

Yes that is me and yes it was a little cold.  It was September.  But what a view.  And what is this?

But for now I think you can just digest this.  If there is something here for you digest.  Maybe, you will have to read it again to see what that is.

Little Irritations Lead Me To WordPress

You know this is not how I was going to start this blog.  I already started one at bloggers.com.  HOWEVER, when I tried to log back in I could not get in.  You know why, it belongs to google.  If you have more than one google account it changes your passwords on all your google accounts. I don’t like google for that very reason.  I know they have the market on everything, but hey that’s life. So I won’t even try again to find the blog.  I like word press anyway.  I used it when I worked. Now I am retired.

I just wanted to start a little blog to express ideas and thoughts.  I know someone out there in world of internet might have their interest peaked.  Who knows.  I don’t have much to write about today.  I had a nice start on the one I wrote the other day.  Now can’t find it.  It will be lost to the universe.   Oh well.  I hope my humor finds it’s way into each post.  We will see.  Sometimes I can be funny.  But this is just the beginning so we will have to see.

On a brighter note, what a gorgeous day we have in Arizona, well actually yesterday and today.  Rain, not our regular dry hot October, but a beautiful mild gentle rain, not like our monsoons, but just light and lovely.  Not that our monsoons are not loved!  They are spectacular.  Now the sky has cleared and I fear we will return to our hotter month.  Hopefully not.

The world is a changing place and for centuries, the weather and the shape of continents has continually changed. Yes it has taken thousands of years, but it happens.  Look at England 8 to 10 thousand years ago, around the ice age it was part of Europe.  So lets not panic about everything that happens on this earth today.  Look outside and be grateful for the view you have.  If it is a view of a brick wall, well then, all I can say is get up and go outside and look up.  You might be surprised at what you see.  But then you must be willing to see.