Airport to the Other World - KTM, Nepal
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| Burning ghats along the river - launching ten folks at a time |
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Kathmandu, Nepal - 4-21-2011
The Airport to the Other World
There is a place of rebirth, recycle, joy and sorrow near Kathmandu – unlike any I have seen before. One ex-pat I met in China told me about it by that very phrase: “it's the airport to the other world, and you've GOT to see that.” So, naturally, that was the first place I asked about when I stepped foot into Kathmandu. I did not even know its name.
The name to this holy place of the Hindu folks is Patshupatinat. The “centerfold” of this City of the Dead is a sacred river – immitating the Ganges, no doubt – with a bridge across it. The bridge separates the “rich” and the “poor” sides of the ritual river. Along the “poor” side stand many, many cremation platforms, which are constantly recharged with new stacks of wood, once their once-living cargo turns to ashes and is sweeped off into the sacred [and quite scary-looking] waters below.... Around each platform, a ritual is performed by the mourning family. The body is carried around its final place of rest several times by the closest ones.....rice is put into the eyes once bearing the light of life....flowers put around the neck. Many weep as the fire is brought to the pyre.
Monkeys, crows, dogs and candy/treats-carrying ladies lighten up the scene.....making it grotesquely humorous. Black, black humor, you know. A surreal sight......I walked along both sides of the river....I stood with the weeping families as a silent witness. I shed a few tears for some-body I never met in life – the first one to go onto a pyre before my eyes.
On the other side of the bridge, the wealthier dead are given a slower, more dignified treatment. Their feet get soaked in the sacred river and water runs around their shroud for a while before the body meets with fire. Only two “runways” are there.....and one was getting rebuilt when I was there. So – one at a time get “launched.”
In a forest of stupas behind the river, there is a place for which the holy site was named. Large, endearing monkeys abound there, doing to each other all the tender and funny things that monkeys do. They look at people as curious two-legged visitors and don't mind coming up for a closer look. Deer wander around the serene grove of tall, tall trees....in fact, the Hindu legend told to me by a guide I met later at the sacred Muktinath, says that Shiva once turned into a huge deer with one horn there. “Patshu” stands for “Deer/Dog/4-legged thing.” “Pati” means “big.” So, it's a place where the huge dear once wandered.
I have never seen a place where the living and the dead interact so closely and colourfully....I've never seen the cycle of life complete so many times before my eyes. Impermanent bodies given back to the elements.....So much release, grief and vulnerability – all in one place.....and a certain “matter-of-factness” about the whole cycle of being that touched me deeply. Death is not hidden here. In fact, I get that our Western society is about the only “place” where it is. Without truly seeing the completion, can we comprehend the cycle itself?
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| Ashes to water..... |
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| Monkeys witness solemnly...or not |
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| Colourful "Babas" |
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| Almost there..... |
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| Preparing for the next "launch" |
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| The next "Passenger" |
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| Family witnesses |
The mourners
The local "Charon" - he prepares the pyre and presides over the ritual
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"From ashes to bone...." |
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| Family prepares "the Passenger" |
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| "The Spirit of Dead Watching" - Gauguin memories.... |
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| "It's time to go back to the stars...." - Coldplay |
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| Monkeys....humans....dead....alive....all side by side |
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| Monkeys are natural at asymmetry |
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| They live there |
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| Hailing the "Yoni-Linga" |
My favourite symbol....so beautifully primal! Yoni-linga.
These two charmed me....
You know what I mean? The golden glow of the sunset as a halo on their fur?
"I CARE"
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| SUNSET ROMANCE |
I met her on the deer path behind the temple...
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| The wealthy side of the river - that's where the richer folks get launched off - only two ghats there - and they soak in the sacred waters for a while prior to the "send-off" - all the elements are involved. "Ashes to snow...." - like that film masterpiece. |
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| The ashes go here and then float down the river until they meet with a mini dam |
On the other side are the caves of the real Babas/Rishis [or so they say]
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Here goes the sun....but the burning doesn't stop then.
Charon at work - sailing across Styx in his invisible gondola.
"Feather to Fire....." [clip from "Ashes and Snow"]
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