In the snow

I use the 22nd of September to meditate. Two more days to Dat. And I want to meditate there more, in the Guru Rinpoche room. In. I am looking forward to it.
As I wrote before, 2 times walking to Dat and two times this silent voice, that said: is your peace walk finished here? Anyway I like this remote place Dat a very lot….

Also I am working with my heart all the triangle walk, and working with the heart it’s combined with the topics of love and compassion.

The last year, walking to Leh and Manali, I thought a lot about my mother. This year in February she turned into 80 and I was contemplating what to do … should I get there on her birthday…. it was all the time present in the mountains. But finally I decided not to go, the peace walk should be somehow not interrupted. Instead I had in December last year the idea to invite her to India. I found a good spot in Rishikesh and March could have been a good month temperature wise.  But a cousin and a good friend of mine, Ilona, who is a lot in contact with my mum, advised me not to do, because it could harm her health….. So I did not.
Walking from Shimla and Spitti to Leh this year, my mother was not so much the topic, sometimes a little bit, but mostly not so present.
But today she is present, with the topic of heart, love and compassion and with my wish to reduse her suffering by sharing my knowledge about meditation and so on…. So my fantasie of helping her through some trouble and my deep wish to help her somehow through is present today. So I meditate, rest a bit, have a look outside, kind of snow rain. …, cost in my tent…..

Somehow a energy comes through with finishing the peace walk and flying to Germany, to be with her and also with my father, who is dement and in a nursery home. And somehow say ‚yes‘ to the idea…..

Tatah. … this is blowing me a bit…. So then I am not a peace walker any more….. what I am then?…. intersting what comes up…. And how can I survive financially. … because I want to continue living from donations…. am I already ready for that now?…. what will be my identity?…. is/was there any ego involved in the peace walk…. because lots of people love others who work for peace….. and so on…..
Peaceful somehow with the ‚decision‘ but a lot of other things, inner and outer ones came up…. somewhen the day went, longr resting period…. and it seems to really snow at night…. temperature will drop….

Next morning everything white. To get to Dat I have to get over the 4.950m YarLa Pass. I am on 4.500 m and that’s manageable.  But I have to leave, if the snowfall continues…. and it does. I don’t go the hiking trail, maybe not easy to find but along a little road in construction….
After half a kilometer I turn around and check if it should be better to go in a other direction…. towards the highway…. But after a while feeling what is best I decide to walk towards the monastery. Maybe I can reach it today. I still walk in sandals, but my feet can have a snow walk. The often proofed for that. My socks have so many holes, that they join on the left foot into a big one and my left toes are looking out…. great … I love snow. After Lungmoche (devastated) I turn towards the short cut. Not knowing that this wall is thought to walk on it in winter time I anyway don’t have a clue to do so. Because maybe 20cm snow on top, don’t feel safe to walk there. But beside I slip here and there. I experience one way of snow blindness. I can’t see at all if it goes up or down, if the snow covered a bush or stone, structures are gone. I fall a few times in some bushes with thorns, some thorns stack in my hands but I am always falling more or less soft. Between the bushes or stones coming up the pass the snow is maybe partly 40cm high. Breathing in, breathing out, both heavily because of elevation I slowly ask myself, where is the pass?…. the wall is so long….. again and again longer…..

Ah there a stupa is visible, that’s the top and I fall again, but this time… I scream…. I felt with my kneecap directly on a peaked stone. Oh…. what a pain….. I touch my knee…. oh nothing broken…. But where does this pain come from….? (Later I learn,  that proparbly the bursa on my knee patella had burst. )….. puh
I am really shocked and can’t go the short cut down from the pass…. I have to be sure, that I am safe….. still heavy snowfall, but nearly no wind, only on top of the pass. I go down the loops of the little road…. uhhh… But my toes are cold now…… I speak with them to support the walk….. the loops are very long in every direction mybe a km and I have to take 5 loops…. my left ankle feels kind of nam and I can’t accept that. I speak loudly to the ankle, ‚you have to became warm again‘ and little later it does not feel nam anymore….. Still having the idea of going all the way to the monastery but slowly slowly I work on another solution, just to go down all the loops, then rest and diguesting the knee shock and overlooking the situation. … I can continue the other day…..
At the bottom of the mountain there is a nice river flowing. Here I build up my tent…. good to have glowing water in a desert…..
Never did build up a tent in the snow with 20cm already there, no sight of seeing an end of the snowfall. But I am just busy to solve all my problems, building up the tent in freezing atmosphere, acknowledging my shock…. knowing me feet need to warm up, too…. everything worked fine….. filling up some of my water bottles and into the tent. After a while I have to interrupt my meditation. Luckily my injuries have any effect of the sitting position, no pain….. but my toes are not getting warm….? After some exercise and rubbing they slowly wake up one by one, but with a lot of pain…… uhhh. … I am so surprised. … normally my feet are able to walk in snow, but maybe there was just to much snow…. and what I don’t realized before…. The sandal strings in the front I always leave a bit loose, so when I walk, the feet at the front BALLEN can extent with every step…. But in this case…. bad, because the snow came all the way under my feet, builded up a ice block under me feet, and that I didn’t realize, because they where already to cold, that made some injury under the feet with a big bruice on the left foot. But I still could feel them all the time…. the outer skin, more or less the horn skin got a bit frozen (but this I understand much later). Anyway, they luckily woke up.
Before sleeping I realize I got also a sunburn in my face – from the reflection….. But the sun was not seen at all
Good sleep…. next morning it’s still snowing and I decide to stay another day, resting , diguesting my shocks and injuries, to give my body and mind time. Willing stop snowing or do I think in here, deeper and deeper in the snow…. at night I have to push the snow away, from inside, so that my head and feet have enough space, it feels icy… and I push the snow away from the top of the tent.  Opening the tent, every time a surprise how much it is already.
At afternoon the snowfall reduces a bit and somehow the sun, still behind the clouds, warms up the tent, and let even the snow under my tent melt. Also I have the feeling, the sun melts some of the snow at the area around my tent.
My food is gone since some days….. but luckily I still have 2kg of the raisins left. That let me be very calm. I can live from this quite a while…..

In the following night I wake up a little after 1am and I am totally awake… not a single bit of tiredness and I just wonder…. what’s up?….
I open the tent…. and the most beautiful scenery is there….. a bright f In the following night I wake up a little after 1am and I am totally awake… not a single bit of tiredness and I just wonder…. what’s up?….
I open the tent…. and the most beautiful scenery is there….. a bright full moon in a crystal clear natur. Everything, the ground and all the mountains are covered with snow and some of the snow crystals are shining in the light of the so bright beautiful full moon…. sooooo beautiful….. I enjoy and I am soooo happy. It’s bitter cold, but the scenery is so warning, that I have the tent totally open for at least half an hour.
During this time a message is there for me. It says: You don’t need to go immediately to Germany, you can go next summer during monsun…. Then you can go for some month to see your family, but you can also travel and see friends and places ….. After you can continue the peace walk in one row to Myanmar.
Oh, I am extatic and euphoric about this information coming through….. But I also know…. being euphoric is sometimes not to good. … I have to feel it through…..

ull moon in a crystal clear natur. Everything, the ground and all the mountains are covered with snow and some of the snow crystals are shining in the light of the so bright beautiful full moon…. sooooo beautiful….. I enjoy and I am soooo happy. It’s bitter cold, but the scenery is so warning, that I have the tent totally open for at least half an hour.
During this time a message is there for me. It says: You don’t need to go immediately to Germany, you can go next summer during monsun…. Then you can go for some month to see your family, but you can also travel and see friends and places ….. After you can continue the peace walk in one row to Myanmar.
Oh, I am extatic and euphoric about this information coming through….. But I also know…. being euphoric is sometimes not to good. … I have to feel it through…..