Verkhovensky’s Internals

Dr. Timothy Leary once speculated that the origin of consciousness lay in what some would consider to be its assassin – that is, thinking, in the word’s most content-full sense, originated when the genetic ancestor of homo sapiens deigned to ingest some form of psycho-somatic substance, thus forcing the fluid of its thought down channels yet to be explored.

Leary also lent academic credibility to the great LSD movement of the ‘60s. From the recording below: “This record is a message to young people, to people under the age of 25, and certainly to people under the age of 40. If you are over the age of 40, I’m not sure you should listen to this record. What I’m going to say might make you mad. I don’t like to get people mad. I particularly don’t like to get people over the age of 40 mad, because these are the people who have guns and handcuffs and prisons. A wide variety of instruments of metal, with which they punish people who get them mad.”

‘The caterpillar cannot understand the butterfly.’ Leary.

The closed-minded kill our children.

tags technorati : Leary evolution consciousness lsd drug use

tags technorati : Nepal Kathmandu Bob Seger music

Here are some pics that I snapped over the last two days, with and without adequate commentary. I’ll return to the India/Nepal travelblogue momentarily.

Taken out the window of my mother’s speeding 1989 Buick on the way back home.

This is a tree, isn’t it?

Quaint…

Portrait of the Chop as a Young Lamb.

They had a sign off the side reading ‘Elk Meat for Sale.’

I almost stepped on this. If you know the species to which these bones belong, please let me know.

Freud once said that every small boy dreams of one day becoming a train conductor.

This Robin, who is actually quite large, has (some would say unwisely) made her nest on top of the pedal gears of a bike hanging upside-down in my backyard. The trouble: I don’t drive, and I’d really like to appropriate that bike as my primary means of transportation (I’m presently spending a fortune on taxis). She has three little babies (are baby robins called ‘chicks’?) whom she feeds with worms plucked from the grass below. Guess I’ll keep the taxi number on speed-dial.

I prefer the exterior of churches to their interior.

tags technorati : Canada North Bay Nature pics

If you want to read a well-written blog about Nepal (and India) with some excellent, detailed pics, try Esben i den store verden, written by a Danish polisci student currently wandering around Nepal and the subcontinent. I envy your geo-coordinates! Stay well.

While I was staying (read ‘drinking’) in Varanasi, I met the most irreverently comical Danish photographer who was about to make a scenic detour through Nepal on his way to Kashmir. Neils, wherever you are – cheers dude. Your company is missed.

tags technorati : Nepal India Bloggers

Kathmandu is a many-sided, all-sensory experience not to be taken lightly.

Coming from the hard steel and concrete of Seoul, a metropolis of breakneck speed and all the bleeding edges of technology, it was inevitable that I received my first impressions of Kathmandu while in a kind of dazed stupor. The crumbling brick masonry of the narrow, muddy and poverty stricken streets; the wandering livestock that unhesitatingly bring traffic to a standstill; and the innumerable smooth talking hawkers who can spot a disoriented tourist through the thickest crowd, all combine into a mind-melting assault.

Finding your footing on Nepalese soil takes time, but as you begin to cautiously lower your guard and let your instincts do what they do best, you’re likely to be struck a second time by the unassuming nature of your guesthouse manager, the easygoing atmosphere emanating from every shop and cafe, but above all by the vast and exotic possibilities that sparkle in front of you.

Below are three pictures of Swayanabath, fittingly dubbed The Monkey Temple by the faithful (and tourist conscious) residents of Kathmandu. The hundreds of Columbus monkeys that accompany the Buddhist monks and the camera-toting tourists up the steep concrete stairs of the South hill add an element of the surreal to the otherwise exhausting climb – a climb well rewarded by a panoramic view of the Kathmandu valley from the commanding stupa at the top. Thought to house a relic from the life of Lord Buddha, the stupa, a bloated white dome topped with a gold painted brick monument (eerily decorated with the eyes of Buddha), is one of the holiest Buddhist sites in the valley. Though over the course of nine weeks I came to see a dizzying and eclectic assortment of stunning religious and natural sights, I don’t doubt that if Swayanabath were the last rather than the first among them, the experience would not have been less magical.

It is today unwise (impossible?) to attempt the overland journey to Nepal from Europe, but in the ‘70s Kathmandu was a Mecca for freethinking travelers seeking enlightenment amongst the holy shrines and monuments of Shangri-La’s capital. The hippy vibe, the delicious cuisine and (not least of all) the legendary and legal hashish made Kathmandu irresistible to the motivated traveler. The city has undoubtedly changed since those sunny days, but it retains its indescribable essence today. A locus of impossible contrast, Kathmandu, once tasted, cannot be forgotten.

I would return to Kathmandu two more times before I left Nepal (the city has an inescapable gravity). Nevertheless, at the time I knew it was time to make my exit – Namaste Kathmandu.

tags technorati : Nepal Kathmandu Travel Travel Writing