Sea so vast...and more vomit.

Vast emptiness and the split cracks open to reveal a beckoning depth. I’m walking down a ghost town where the tombstone of civilization reads like a prayer flag blowing in the wind—abandon all doubt ye who enter here. Snow capped mountains reflect off their desert tipped counterparts and the moonscape vibrates a stillness you will never forget. Inability to chose a pathway leads me frozen on a deserted planet. Quietness reads incomplete on a venture I would have liked to have taken…Spitting the incoherence forward, hoping for the pain splatters to morph into vibrancy…That drowning of clarity pushes me forward to the depths and ends of the Earth—12,000 feet up in the crescent of creation and it still manages to escape me. Photography is the ultimate illusion, travel far away and find yourself still looking in the mirror. Sensationally still the same, chase your projections to the end of time—it never was to begin with. Echoes and vibrations, distance ceases to exist. Welcome to the cradle. It is here the story begins….

I haven’t slept for twenty-four hours. My layers are falling of, my sunken cheeks and darkened eyeballs reflect a grimace that only psychotics relate to. However, all is well on the flip side. We (myself and two others) have boarded a plane headed for the region of Ladakh in the state of Kashmir. It’s 5 a.m. and I’m forcing myself awake for the upcoming theatrics. We will be flying into the world’s highest airport, soaring above the tallest mountains on the planet just as the sun begins to spark across the horizon, illuminating the snow capped peaks. I’m rocking back & forth in attempts to cope with psychosomatic mix of sleep deprivation and anxiety, watching as with each breath a frenzy of tension threatens to penetrate the last fraction of innocence I’ve stored away. I flash in and out of dream worlds that merge real life and imagination into some sort of mental cacophony. I flicker awake; oblivious as to the time spent off in close yet far away places. I peer out the window and see the emerging light create a split between clouds and pure blackness—blood red, hazy blue and some other soggy colors create a beam of vision, yet nothing below but a sea of dark abyss. Then it begins to penetrate…slowly…slowly…grooves break into the silence…

Light bounces off the clouds, reflecting a sliver of the 20,000 foot peaks into my skull. It feels like battery acid is running through my forehead from the lack of sleep but as the sun slowly begins to salivate over the endless valley of creation I can’t help but find this pretty awesome—yeahhh. I’m watching the sun give birth to the planet while tweaked out on no sleep and shpongle crawling through my headphones, moaning incoherence from the tryptamine realm . The gradual illumination of the unknown carries so much force you sink back into your seat and struggle to regain composure. The sun has crystallized fully now and we are surfing on a vast sea of infinitely fractured Earth. The captain tips us left, and then right, as the blues harmoniously reverberate to pearl white and back again as we stabilize to equilibrium with the expanding horizon.

An ancient town breaks out in the middle of the ocean. We circle around the hidden city, spiraling our way down, exchanging places with the mountains we previously towered above. The land is dead. The hills are desolate and devoid of any life.

The ocean of jagged stillness has translated into an empty desert of twisted style—cold, alone, and dead—completely dead to the entire world and utterly indifferent towards your concerns or its own for that matter. Nothing ever grows here and no one ever cares. The only movement comes in heaping dust storms, eradicating all hope of bounty and presence. The only trickle of movement comes from the light dancing through the clouds and the dark figures shifting across the runway. Something isn’t coming back from here. It would be like getting sucked through a wind tunnel and expecting gravity to feel normal again. But what does that matter? It (this, that, yours, mine) is just a minor frustration, so stop giving so much credit to it…but still even in the middle of the world’s least accessible region on a surface even weeds reject—even then—you’re still fucking stuck—living in a pit of quick sand the only way out is to Hold. Your. Fucking. Breath.

Now breathe.

Like hanging off a city train in the metallic jungle of Mumbai on Christmas Eve…it’s a momentary high and its better to let go then grasp on to what you know fades awa—

The high sucked anyway.

Stepping out of my mind for a moment…I managed to get food poisoning—again. I believe it was from the (seemingly) uncooked vegetables I ignorantly consumed…and to think I’ve been burdened my entire life by elders informing me I don’t eat enough vegetables—perhaps my past activity is justified now? Whose laughing now? Not me, since I’ve been puking and peeing out my butt for 24 hours.

However, I decided to climb the palace overlooking the town of Leh in despite of my illness. I felt better and had been holding down a large lunch so why not? I took some pretty awesome photos and as I began to climb down I became increasingly more nauseas and had to stop to diarrhea on the palace grounds several times in multiple locations—good thing I always carry toilet paper. During such sessions, I was at a visible high point and the entire city of Leh may have witnessed me defecate upon their historical monument…As I climbed down, I decided to take a break in the medieval alley ways before I went down to the street and I felt it coming up the other end—good, great, grand! I puked up a bunch of momos and tsampa (Tibetan porridge) up…It was getting dark and before I finished lurching the remains of my stomach out I realized the stray dogs might swarm on me—I look up and sure enough there was one already trotting over with a massive grin on his face upon smelling the newly discovered dinner. As I’m walking down I had to throw some rocks at some other aggressive stray dogs to ward them off and at this point I decided its best to get some sleep…I am to see the shaman tomorrow…

I arrive at the shaman’s village/hut thing with my translator and I step inside where thirty or so ladakhis are already sitting in a cold damp room with peeling green wallpaper. They flash me inquiring glances but the shaman begins to go into trance, which takes the attention of me immediately—the shaman starts lurching violently, speaking in tongues, and chanting between all of this…Two other shamans in training assist in some manner I can’t interpret. A woman is openly breastfeeding her baby in front of me while this elderly shaman woman is convulsing in a erratic manner to channel an invisible spirit…Interesting way to start to the day…The shaman (or Oracle is a better word) first has people ask her questions—I have my translator ask her about my own issues and she just says I need to practice tolerance and putting a prayer flag up on the mountain wouldn’t hurt—damn, that’s a buzzkill…Endurance and perseverance…I don’t think I needed to go to literally the middle of the Himalayas to hear that one—was kinda hoping for a more concrete solution…My translator tells me, “you can’t suck out anxiety.” Sooooooo iiiittttt gooooooeeeeeeeesssssss

I watch, however, with great amusement as she sucks pus & human fluid directly out of peoples’ necks, stomachs, backs, heads, and eyeballs—mostly with a straw but sometimes with just her own mouth…People quivering and about to fall over as she suddenly snaps her head back to spit out the remains…On one old woman she sucked out some solid chunks that looks like the inner remains of a broken egg and she proudly showed it around the room as a trophy and proof of legitimacy…