(Blog Update 12/25/07: Twelve hours after I had originally posted these photos and notes, I learned that a suspension bridge has collapsed in western Nepal. Seven people are dead and scores are missing. The people were reportedly headed to a celebration of the full moon.)
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I’m afraid I’m one of those people who wakes up in the middle of the night and, though I wish this was not the case, my brain switches into Alert Mode. I start thinking about a book I’m reading, or a photo project I’m shooting, or I have a brainstorm for a way to solve the world’s problems. And I know right away that I might as well get out of bed. There will be no going back to sleep.
Last night I think it might have been the moon that woke me up. About 3 AM I opened my eyes to see that the just-past-full moon was shining so brightly into my bedroom, I thought for a minute it was daylight outside. I got up, went to the kitchen and made a big mug of hot tea, then headed outside for a walk in the cold, clear, sleep-robbing moonlight.
It was a little surreal for me to realize that, just two months ago when we were half-a-world away in Nepal, I photographed that same moon setting over Mt. Khumbila, a beautiful peak in the Solu Khumbu region of the Himalaya. The mountain is sacred to the Sherpa people, and, as I walked near my home last night --Christmas lights twinkling on my neighbor’s
front porch-- I realized my mind had wandered and I felt like I was back in Nepal.
I thought about the Nepali greeting “Namaste.” It’s a word that can simply mean “hello” or “good-bye,” or it can have a deeper, more-spiritual connotation: I honor the good in you. As Leah and I hiked from village to village in Nepal, passersby would practically sing their greeting, Namaste floating in the air like a chant. Often their Namaste was accompanied by a palms-together hand gesture, yet another way Nepalis show respect.
I suppose I’m about to suggest something that is going to sound simplistic, but on my walk last night in the eerie moonlight, I couldn't help dreaming that the various peoples of our planet, unable as we are to co-exist peacefully, might have a better starting-point for understanding if we had some kind of worldwide way of communicating and demonstrating respect.
Namaste.
