FLASHBACK FRIDAY – BRANDON AT LAMAYURU
High in the Himalayas of India in the remote moonscape of Tibetan Ladakh is the gompa (Tibetan monastery) of Lamayuru. It is older than Tibetan Buddhism, for it was originally a gompa for the lama monks of Bön, the ancient animist religion of Tibet. I took my son Brandon here on an expedition through Tibetan India in 1993. Brandon had his 10th birthday here. Behind him is the enormous statue of blue-eyed Sakyamuni Buddha in the central prayer hall.
Brandon has never forgotten Lamayuru as anyone who has been here never does. We’ll be here again this August – and Brandon will be leading the expedition. Join us for the high adventure of Indian Tibet 2023 for a true “experience of a lifetime”! (Glimpses of our breathtaking world #151 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
NOT AGAIN??!!
TANTRIC BHUTAN
The most fabulously exotic country on earth is the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan. The Bhutanese religion of Tantric Buddhism is here exemplified by a prayer hall wall painting of Yab-Yum – the physical union of Compassion and Wisdom. Male compassion is personified as the deity Samvara with a blue body, multiple faces and arms. He embraces his consort of female wisdom Vajra-varahi.
It is important to understand that Yab-Yum is considered a sacred act as a path to Enlightenment. It is just one example of how Bhutan may stretch our comfort zone to learn ancient ways and practices, giving us a broader perspective on our humanity. For an in-depth understanding of Bhutan’s extraordinary culture, consider joining our Wheeler-Windsor Expedition to the Land of the Thunder Dragon this November. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #16 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
SKYE’S LINKS 04/13/23
Scrooge McDuck Moves to Texas
Free! Free at last! Well, not quite yet, but we may be on the way to the most important thing that has happened in America since FDR seized monetary gold nine decades ago. Get ready for a Holy Moses! moment. So calm down, get settled for first things first. Before the link below, read about the Texas Bullion Depository.
See texasbulliondepository.gov for details. Okay, now you’re prepped to read what’s below. Worried or terrified about CBDCs that eliminate cash and give the Deep State control over every dime you spend? Texas is riding to your rescue. Please study this well, and hold on to your hat:
Texas Bill Would Create State-Issued Gold-Backed Digital Currency
And what’s this about?
This Skye’s Links is a real blockbuster, so come on in to learn and enjoy!
GGANTIJA
The small European island country of Malta in the Mediterranean south of Sicily and close to the north coast of Africa is where civilization emerged from the Stone Age.
The story begins over 7,000 years ago, when a handful of Stone Age tribes in Sicily rafted 55 miles south to land on the twin islands of Gozo and Malta. They lived in caves, then huts, fished, hunted, farmed with primitive tools for they had no metal – and over a period of more than a thousand years taught themselves how to construct massive buildings of stone.
This is the Temple of Ggantija (zhee-gan-tee-zha). Built almost 6,000 years ago (around 3600 BC), it is the oldest free-standing structure in the world. It is older than the pyramids in Egypt by a thousand years, older than Stonehenge by 15 centuries. The enormous stones weighing several tons were cut from the limestone bedrock with tools of stone and antler horn for they had no metal, and moved using small round-cut rocks as ball bearings for they had no wheels.
These folks figured out all by themselves how to build this and other massive stone temples to their gods and goddesses so many millennia ago. Nobody taught them. They were the first. Be sure and see it for yourself this October and experience The Magic of Malta with Rebel and me! (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #166 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
AIR CELEBRATES THE AMERICAN DREAM
Imagine being able to take your children or grandchildren to a Hollywood blockbuster that tells the story of a great American business success, celebrates entrepreneurial values, isn’t woke, and includes only a little profanity.
Air — the story of how underdog shoe company Nike landed Michael Jordan’s revolutionary endorsement of the “Air Jordan” shoe — is exactly that. The Jordan shoe changed fashion and completely realigned how athletes benefit from products they associate with. It’s still one of the most successful consumer products ever.
Hollywood is fresh from observing how Tom Cruise’s Top Gun: Maverick broke box-office records a year ago and grossed over $1 billion worldwide. Though it will still produce many woke films, Hollywood may have decided that it has to pay for its frequent box-office losses by producing entertainment that people actually want to shell out money for.
That’s what Hollywood has done with Air, starring Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. See the Trailer below.
THE NEXT MEDICAL REVOLUTION IS ON THE WAY
Twenty years ago, the idea of putting a live cell in a human, directing it to travel to a specific location, and having it do a specific task would have been considered impossible. Today it’s reality, and hundreds of companies are working on cell-therapy applications.
That’s only the beginning. Advancements arriving at an exponentially increasing rate lie ahead as new discoveries reach the clinic with breathtaking speed. We can now reasonably speculate about therapies that will give us the ability to clean tiny cancers from our bodies as routinely as dentists clean our teeth.
We can look for the possibility of gaining immunity from dozens of viruses with a single vaccine and editing genes to eliminate many birth defects. We can picture growing new organs from patients’ own cells and even slowing the aging process. Here’s why and how.
OUR FRENCH REVOLUTION
The Dying Lion of Lucerne*
We are in a Jacobin Revolution of the sort that in 1793-94 nearly destroyed France. And things are getting scary.
The Democrat Party vanished completely sometime in 2020.
It was absorbed by hard-left ideologues. They were bent on radically altering, or hijacking, existing institutions to force radical, equality-of-result agendas that otherwise do not earn majority support.
What triggered the collective madness and this Jacobin takeover? The catalysts are many.
America now has three potential futures and two are bad.
PUTIN’S BUBBLE
Decision-making in the Kremlin had been so erratic—even before the re-invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022—that the proposition of President Vladimir Putin inhabiting a bubble of servile courtiers and carefully doctored information appeared perfectly plausible.
Early April 2023 has brought even more evidence supporting this assumption of detachment from reality typical for mature autocratic regimes but aggravated by an unhealthy ambition for determining the course of global affairs.
Bubbles, however, are diaphanously short-lived by their nature. Is Putin’s approaching the bursting point?
MAKING FRIENDS IN ANTARCTICA
This is my wife Rebel relaxing with a native of Antarctica while on a visit to the Palmer Science Station there. Getting up close and personal with Antarctic wildlife is so easy as they have no fear of us at all, be they seals, elephant seals, or penguins.
Better not get too close to male elephant seals in domination combat, however, as they can weigh up to 7,000 pounds. And steer clear of full grown leopard seals, which are apex predators weighing over 1,000 pounds. No worries, though, for Rebel with this young fellow. Experiencing Antarctica is always a memorable adventure. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #94 photo ©Jack Wheeler)