A purifying simplicity

If I’m not currently travelling (and right now I’m not!), once in a while I tend to take a trip down memory lane ;). Sadly, details blur as the years go by, but the time stamp on this photo tells me I was here a bit over 3 years ago.

3 years ago.

I had reached Annapurna Base Camp the day earlier just after sunrise, and was currently on my 8th day of trekking, now making my way back to civilization after spending an afternoon at a local hot spring. There’s a purifying simplicity and an invisible beauty about going on a multi-day trek, with just a limited amount of possessions stuffed into a rucksack on your back, moving forward ever so gradually, one step at a time, with nature all around you and inviting you to just love where you are in the world and in life at that very moment.

I’ve been yearning for this for the past few weeks, and it hasn’t been a fleeting sentiment that just comes and goes. We tend to become too consumed in the material world, and often make life needlessly more complicated, especially living in a big city. But those material possessions don’t leave you fulfilled, at least not for me, anyway. It’s so rewarding on all levels to simplify things. I’ll be back in Nepal next month and hope to do another trek for a couple weeks or so. I’m looking forward to being in a different environment, to absorb the simplicity of just walking, to gain a renewed and clearer perspective on life.

Perhaps it was peace

05:24, 9 May 2015, Sikkim, India

Eyes touched by the day’s first light, lying between a hard mattress and a rough blanket, I decided that I wouldn’t be able to fall back to sleep. So I left my shack, a crumbling wooden box taped with newspaper, walked past the outhouse, and climbed a shaky ladder to the top of an unfinished building. I breathed in the crisp morning air and saw a rising sun illuminating the magnificent Himalayas.

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Up on that roof, there was no fear, no worries, no doubts, no anxieties. Just a willingness to accept whatever the world would bring me that day. Just this harmony with my surroundings, modest and humble compared to other extravagances of the world.

Perhaps it was peace. Just peace, then and there, at that moment …