Mountain Gods, Hidden Seeds & Himalayan Beauty Pageants.
Yarns with shamans, politicians and Mr. Kalimpong
I first came to the Northeast India town of Kalimpong shortly after a devastating earthquake ravaged Nepal in 2015. I was working then for an organization based out of Boulder, Colorado called Where There Be Dragons that takes college students to various places around the world for three months of cross cultural, experiential education. Due to the tragedy that then hit that greatly beloved Himalayan Kingdom we were unable to move forward with our planned Kathmandu based semester. Heartbroken by the unbelievable losses the natural disaster wrought upon many of our friends we wondered if it was appropriate to continue with a trip at all. In the end however, we decided to move forward, as life always must, opting to bring students to the neighboring, Nepali-speaking region some would prefer was not India at all but rather, Gorkhaland.
Coming into contact with this culturally rich, biologically diverse realm was an unexpected turn of events that would alter my life, mostly due to the friendships that blossomed then with the Lepcha family that agreed to host us. Until coming to Kalimpong I had never heard of the Lepcha, the original peoples of the Khangchendzonga range. Nor had I, for that matter, heard of Khangchendzonga, the third tallest mountain in the world. Like so many others interested in the Himalaya I had mostly focused on so-called “Mt. Everest”, Sherpas, mystical forms of Hinduism and Buddhism and, of course, the Tibetans. Yet quickly after meeting the matriarch of our host family, Sharron (didi as I would affectionately refer to her as), my world and my understanding of my place in it soon burst open like a finally ripened rhododendron flower, growing much more vast. An unlikely kinship began to blossom between her family and mine, whose pollen has since helped gift life to countless other beings worldwide.
…And, it should be noted, it is not lost on me that were it not for the unthinkable grief that arose from tragic events in Nepal that year, none of this would have come to pass. Sometimes life is like this. No mud, no lotus. Shiva is sometimes rather cruel, working in ways only a mountain truly understands.
During that first engagement, didi (dee-dee) and I, as we are both seed keepers, spent a great deal of time swapping stories about seeds, of which this region has many. Due to the Lepcha peoples close proximity to what they refer to as “The Big Stone” (i.e. Khangchendzonga) they have indeed been abundantly blessed with a great deal of life-giving forces. Being that the omnipresent, awe-inspiring, ever snowcapped mountain believed to be the origin place for all Lepcha peoples is closer than all other massive Himalayan giants to the Bay of Bengal, the monsoon clouds that rise from the south become trapped within her mighty grasp, the result of which is an astoundingly rich ecosystem that makes one seldom feel the urge to journey beyond this magical, fruit bearing realm. It doesn’t take long to see why so many spiritual masters have found there way here over the centuries.
Nearly ten years have passed since that first trip to Kalimpong. Many of the plants that now grow in our garden in Northern Thailand, as well as the land we occasionally tend to in Colorado, were initially planted with seeds shared with us then by Sharron didi. And from those, countless more seeds have generously offered themselves to be shared in hundreds of other gardens, the world over. And with these seeds, are their stories, which, like seeds, must be well preserved, shared and planted, allowed to adapt well with new places, made able to offer life in ever new ways.
The other night, around a fire under a full moon I had the spent the evening deep in Story with a Lepcha shaman. Many of his stories came to him through his native language of which he himself had not known until it miraculously arose within him one day by means of which I do not have permission to share. Suffice it to say enough conditions were present for the memory of his forgotten language to spontaneously be remembered. Aspects of real culture are like seeds. When enough conditions are present, seemingly extinct seeds return. Any organic farmer who has worked with seeds long enough has witnessed this first hand. The genetic memory of what life is meant to be is always present, stored mysteriously, mythologically hidden in plain sight. Stories too, songs, forgotten rhythms, useful skills… They are all in us, waiting for the right conditions to come together. Fortunately for me, enough of these conditions were with us that night for good Story to be told.
The origins of this tale lay in Dzongu, a Lepcha reserve located along the Talung Valley in North Sikkim. As I was told, surrounding Khangchendzonga are many smaller mountains that are origin places of each particular Lepcha clan, with Khangchendzonga residing at the center, being the ultimate origin place of all Lepcha. The “hill” in front of Khangchendzonga as seen from Dzongu, known by the name of Pun Yang Chyu is believed to carry within her a rich repository of seeds of which shall, when the end times come, be generously distributed to the Lepcha in order to initiate recreation again. Of course, this story is more complex than this, but for the whole story to be again told, more conditions are necessary.
On that first trip to didi’s cozy stone home, which at one time was the hamlet/monastery of the infamous and somewhat controversial figure, Sangharakshita, whom is believed by many to be among the first westerners who devoted their life to the practice and spread of Buddhism, I recall playing my trumpet one rather crisp night for a village celebration with a young boy who has since grown up to become a talented young man. Miles, who I would go on to trek through the Dzongri mountain pass in Sikkim with and jam alongside with plenty more times in the years to come is Sharron didi’s son. Incidentally, his father is from Colorado, where I am also from, thus making the unlikely opportunity for peculiar cultural cross-pollinations between us to be made more likely. The Lord works in mysterious ways.
Fast forward to 2024. My first physical return to Kalimpong in nearly 10 years. Like most everywhere else in the world, much has changed. A decade ago there were no coffee shops, now there are many. Far more hip hop can be heard. Boys walk cool past an alter to the wrathful goddess Kali with flat brimmed ball caps tilted slightly over shaggy hair. Baggy jeans and knock-off Air Jordans are worn by a teenage blacksmith crafting a kukri. Dark sunglasses. The omnipresent smell of incense, burning plastic, sawdust and ganja. There is far more concrete. More cars. More noise. Bezos’ Amazon conveniently delivers everything to your front door. Vajrayana monks with iPhones eat cheesecake in trendy cafes. Kentucky Fried Chicken serves southern comfort food to wandering aesthetics passing by on alms round.
The West has certainly found Shangrila, opened her medicine bundle, taken lots of photos, and posted them all on an instagram live feed without actually understanding what its looking at. Modernities strangely seductive, single-use, hypnotic gloss has cleverly managed to ooze its way into the once hidden beyuls of the Himalaya, hoping to form yet another hybridized, reproducible, highly addictive GMO that will only work if empire has control. But this is India. Not America. The game here is different. Well, same same, but different. (head bobble).
On the second day of our arrival to Kalimpong, we were taken to a beauty pageant. I had never actually been to one before but of course, having grown up in the heartland of America, I am very familiar with what they are. Yet, to learn of one taking place in a land more know for tantric initiations and aestheticism I was surprised to learn of one being held on the far edges of the Silk Road to be sure. We do live in interesting times.
Miles, as it turned out, was selected as one of the finalists to potentially be crowned as Mr. Kalimpong. The lights were bright as we entered the great hall, with smoke rising to amplify the regality. Music pumped loudly as young participants strut the runway with the stoic sexy stride so often found in L.A. fashion feeds. Fit young men were shirtless, while females were adorned in gorgeous night gowns. They were all asked the usual questions regarding how they, if crowned, would use their newfound fame. Everyone replied in english and danced with hipster swag. Well, mostly…
“We live in a kind of dark age, craftily lit with synthetic light, so that no one can tell how dark it has really gotten. But our exiled spirits can tell. Deep in our bones resides an ancient singing couple who just won't give up making their beautiful, wild noise. The world won't end if we can find them.” -Martin Prechtel
Once in a while, like a seemingly lost language that spontaneously resurfaces when enough conditions are right, the brilliant memory of that Original Story leaps briefly into view, just long enough to seed our hearts with oddly familiar awe. It was obvious to my wife and I that the youth shined most brightly when they reverted to offering their more authentic selves. Occasionally, between forced efforts to smile brightly while speaking perfectly proper english in the expected, overly confident way of say, Ms. America, participants would slip and express themselves freely in their native tongues. So too, in-between walking like a Victoria Secret model or beatboxing while wearing a wifebeater and tight jeans, the tribal rhythms of Nepali highlands, rice fields of Sikkim, and even the energized pulse of Bollywood would briefly burst through. When adorned in traditional costume, singing in the key of Kalimpong, it seemed to us the very life-giving hills surrounding around us chimed in too.
Seeds must cross with other seeds from time to time. If they never do, they atrophy. Like people who never travel, never listen to anything other than Fox news, only eat microwaved foods or learn only from stories regurgitated to them by the authorities of their respective districts, a seed that stays the same will eventually cease to be. For a seed to continue living, it needs to marry into other ways of being, while all the while keeping alive the memory of what it came from and once was. Wisdom is essential for this merger to take place. Mistakes, inevitable. But the ability to adapt requires such courageous leaps and is imperative for life to continue.
Miles was crowned Mr. Kalimpong. He, being the fruit of an unlikely marriage between a Lepcha woman and a man from the U.S.A. has become the alter of sorts that two very different worlds now kneel before, to whom they dedicate their lives to, through which whom wildly different ancestral dreams now collide and make merry. He is the physical representation of an unlikely cultural union that has resulted in a more resistant strain of human more capable of understanding the strange new roads rapidly being paved on ancient soil, managing to carry within him an encoded understanding, if only on an unconscious level currently, of both old and new. Like a beauty pageant in a Beyul. Like corn, whose origins lie in Mexico, that serves now as one of the staple foods of Asia. Like hip-hop music itself which only came to be when its original form, transplanted from Africa merged in tragic conditions with the land and transplanted peoples of Turtle Island.
It is still unclear where any of this will all lead. As modernity continues to distract us from ceremony and our original agreements, it’s hard to say what is ultimately directing such peculiar comings together and why. Yet as my mentor, Martin Prechtel has often said, and as so too his teacher told him, it isn’t up to us to decide what the seeds look like when they return home. Our responsibility is to keep them alive.
The Lepcha shaman I have met with in Kalimpong are politicians and bodybuilders, Buddhists and Christian priests who spend a lot of time posting on social media. They don’t walk around the streets with wild grasses and feathers tied elegantly in their hair with hand-spun string. But they still head for the mountains regularly to make prayers to the mountain and all Her plant and animal children that we so regularly kill in order for us all to live. They show up for town meetings to remind developers that if they keep building dams than the souls of the people won’t be able to journey back up the Teesta river to their ancestral home. And yes, some of the most spiritual people I have ever met are alcoholics. It isn’t for us to judge the nature of the seeds being offered to us now by Pun Yang Chyu. To be sure, they will look like nothing ever before seen. As far as I can tell, one of the strongest seeds I have yet found is Mr. Kalimpong.
Notes:
*Some of the information shared here was obtained from the writings of Pema Wangchuck and Mita Zulca. I recommend reading their classic work “Khangchendzonga: Sacred Summit” for deeper insights into the mountain herself and the peoples surrounding her.
*I also highly recommend diving into Azuk Tamsangmoo Lepchas writings for deeper insights into the Lephcha worldview. AACHULEY: A bilingual journal illustrating the Lepcha Way of Life.
#maypeaceprevailonearth
Great post G! Loved this one
Loved this one!! It’s been 12 years since I’ve been to Kalimpong, I probably won’t recognize it.