TIJI — CASTING OUT THE DEMONS
Once a year in the capital of the Tibetan Kingdom of Lo, the medieval walled city of Lo Manthang, the Lo-pa Tibetans hold a ceremony called Tiji (tee-gee), meaning casting out of demons. It’s meant to prevent any demons or malicious spirits from destroying their barley and buckwheat harvests.
Tiji is colorfully spectacular and dramatic, but this is no tourist show – Tiji is a deeply serious religious ritual. The Kingdom of Lo is in a very remote and roadless region of the Himalayas known as Mustang, lying north of the Himalayan giants of Annapurna and Dhaulagiri in Nepal on the border with Chinese-occupied Tibet.
We were privileged to witness it on a Himalaya Helicopter Expedition. We hope to be so privileged again next year. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #238 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
PATAGONIA WONDERLAND
WWX-Patagonia Wonderland 2023 Jan 7-17
A land of people who live life to the brim, who eat marvelous food with gusto, who drink fabulous wine merrily, who party exuberantly, who will welcome you graciously with both arms.
Experience all of this luxuriously with Wheeler-Windsor Expeditions as we explore Patagonia together.
You won’t believe what a safely thrilling adventure this is, how much fun you’ll have. To find out all about it, for lots of photos of what you’ll see and do, it’s all right here: WWX-Patagonia Wonderland 2023 Jan 7-17
Start the year off right with a life-memorable experience with your fellow TTPers… See you soon in fabulous Patagonia!
KEEPING YOUR SANITY THROUGH SELF-MASTERY
Washington and Franklin – Exemplars of Self-Mastery
A certain degree of struggle, inside or outside, is part of life. At least two of America's founders paid attention to their own struggles and wrote about them, in very different ways.
George Washington, from a psychological perspective today, would be said to have had "anger issues." He could have quite a temper, but that wasn't something most people saw. Why is that? Read his Rules for Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation, and you'll find out. He worked hard and mastered his temper, and his other emotions.
Benjamin Franklin also took a conscious approach to self-mastery. In his Autobiography, he mapped out a strategy to practice and achieve several areas of virtue. These two great men exemplified self-mastery. Let’s talk about how you can too.
FLASHBACK FRIDAY: ASTRIDE WHERE AFRICA IS SPLITTING APART
It looks like a crack in a road, but this is in the Afar Triangle of Djibouti, where a triple junction of tectonic plates is tearing Africa in pieces. Plates spreading apart is called a Rift. I’m standing over where three gigantic rifts – the Red Sea that has split Arabia and northern Africa in two, the Gulf of Aden that will split off Somalia from the rest of Africa, and the Great Rift Valley of East Africa currently ripping Africa itself asunder – originate. Here the once intact Africa Plate began to tear in three directions.
Ironically, here is where humanity did the same. Genetic scientists have determined that some 60,000 years ago a small band of Africans (less than 200) rafted from what is now Djibouti to what is now Yemen in Arabia – and that incredibly, every human on earth today except for those who stayed, is descended from them. That means, e.g., all Europeans, Chinese and Asians, Australian Aborigines, North and South Native Americans, descended from those 200 people long ago.
Two amazing facts from this tiny country. There’s a third – it’s the best place in the world to swim with whale sharks, an unforgettable experience. All in Djibouti! (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #238 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
AT LEAST THERE’S THE REDSHINE STATE
HALF-FULL REPORT 11/11/22
This is the current election results graphic as of 9am EST this morning (11/11) on RealClearPolitics. It’s been frozen for some 36 hours now, never changes. That can mean only one thing – blue cities and counties in purple states are desperately trying to create enough cheat-by-mail ballots to win. Here’s how it works…
But that the midterms were close enough to cheat means they were an IQ test that America failed at. In other words:
Oh, and this just in from the Babylon Bee: Trump Bid To Be DeSantis’s VP Pick Off To Rocky Start.
THE DUNES OF SOSSUSVLEI
The gigantic sand dunes of Sossusvlei in Namibia are among the world’s tallest – and oldest at some five million years old. Many consider them the world’s most beautiful, with ancient sand filled of iron oxide turning them bright ochre. The one you see here is named Dune 45.
You can climb the dunes, float high above them in a hot air balloon, or just revel in their beauty. Sossusvlei is only one of the many wonders of Namibia. We’ll have another exploration of Namibia in another year or two. You should mark Namibia down on your bucket list. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #237 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
SKYE’S LINKS 11/10/22
For crying out loud, can’t we operate a robust, transparent election system?
Paper ballots in blue states are an issue again, as well as mysterious shutdowns of voting machines in contentious districts. Some devices suffered denial of service attacks from their internet connections, while others had sudden software instability.
There might be some justice for service members forced to take the jab or face dishonorable discharge. Good, they deserve it, and it was an epic mistake in order to maintain the allusion of American military readiness, a psyop.
The Federal Reserve will have its revenge, too, as they now hint that the Covid response was in the hands of the national security state and not the health care people all along. The Fed was forced to print money or endure secret treason charges. Now we face years of inflation caused by the deep staters acting beyond their expertise.
Twitter faces pressure to maintain official narratives and censorship or else. Musk does not appear sure how to respond, or maybe he has an undisclosed plan. In any event, the national security arms of many governments are laying claim to Twitter and the greater internet. The truth of who is running things is emerging.
Elections have consequences, and we failed to correct 2020; there is a long slog ahead. There are signs of a new Enlightenment emerging as the historic Enlightenment fades away. To the incredible frustration of Klaus Schwab, Freedom will find a way.
Come on over to Skye’s links. We are eager to hear from you.
TUESDAY TAKEAWAYS
What, if anything, did the midterms tell us about the country -- other than underwhelming Republicans could still take the House and Senate albeit barely?
During the COVID-19 lockdowns, American elections radically changed to mail-in and early voting. They did so in a wild variety of state-by-state ways. Add ranked voting and a required majority margin to the mess and the result is that once cherished Election Day balloting becomes increasingly irrelevant.
Election Night also no longer exists. Returns are not counted for days. It is intolerable for a modern democracy to wait and wait for all sorts of different ballots both cast and counted under radically different and sometimes dubious conditions.
The Democrats -- with overwhelming media and money advantages -- have mastered these arts of massive and unprecedented early, mail-in, and absentee voting. Old-fashioned Republicans count on riling up their voters to show up on Election Day. But it is far easier to finesse and control the mail-in ballots than to "get out the vote."
A FATHER IN CHAD
This is the most anti-Marxist picture I have ever taken. I am a White American. He is a Black African in N’Djamena, Chad. And those differences mean nothing compared to our both being fathers.
Look into his soul through his eyes. Look at the tranquility and peaceful joy his soul feels in being the father of his two beautiful children. It is the same with me.
The Left’s purpose is to divide us into tribal differences of hate – white vs. “people of color,” rich vs. poor, employers vs. workers, exploiters vs. exploited, victimizers vs. victims, the anti-white racist hate of Critical Race Theory. Always, always, they focus exclusively on differences, to separate people apart, to hate other different than them. All in the ancient “divide and conquer” scheme to control people’s lives.
Yet the differences between us are so unimportant compared to what we all have in common, our basic humanity. The bond that I have with this man from Chad is so much greater than anything that separates us. Focusing on what we all have in common with our fellow human beings is the way to rid the world of the anti-human hate of the Marxist Left. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #157, photo ©Jack Wheeler)