your mind is the knife

 

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With only simple tools at their disposal, Ladakhis spend a long time accomplishing each task. Producing wool for clothes involves the time-consuming work of looking after the sheep while they graze, shearing them with hand tools, and working the wool from beginning to end—cleaning, spinning, and finally weaving it. Yet I found that the Ladakhis had an abundance of time. They worked at a gentle pace and had a surprising amount of leisure.

Time is measured loosely; there is never a need to count minutes. "I'll come to see you toward midday, toward evening," they will say, giving themselves several hours' leeway. Ladakhi has many lovely words to depict time, all broad and generous. Gongrot means "from after dark till bedtime"; nyitse means literally "sun on the mountain peaks"; and chips-chirrit, "bird song," describes that time of the morning before the sun has risen, when the birds sing.

Even during the harvest season, when the work lasts long hours, it is done at a relaxed pace that allows an eighty-year-old as well as a young child to join in and help. People work hard, but at their own rate, accompanied by laughter and song. The distinction between word and play is not rigidly defined.

—Helena Elena Norberg Hodge

Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh

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 Your mind is the knife that cuts the continuum of space and time into neat slices of linear experience.  

 

—Deepak Chopra

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Take me to the other side of this night,

where I am you, we are us,

the kingdom where pronouns are intertwined

… and the sea sang with the murmur of light.

 

—Octavio Paz 

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