THE SPIRIT OF THE BEGINNER

THE SPIRIT OF THE BEGINNER

After a sharp turn between the cumulus clouds that fray at the top of the Himalayan pines, the small twin-otter of Yeti Airlines lands bouncing on the track of Phaplu. It is 15:30, which is late for this last Himalayan flight. Barely enough time for the fortnight of passengers to jump to the ground that the engines are already purring because the pilot is in a hurry to take off again before the big clouds of heat that rise from the terraces finally clog the pass.

On this way to three days walk from the Everest region, few or no tourists. Sometimes we come across a flock of school children on a spree or a group of bearers with senseless charges, bottles of live beers or chickens that they carry in layers super imposed, dizzying, topped above, so high, by a small radio and their precious flip flops because they prefer to walk barefoot to better feel the roughness of the trail.

As soon as the twin-otter has jumped behind the hill, it carries in its wake and the past and the hustle and bustle of the world. Silence is established and with it the shock of the present. You suddenly feel as if you are invaded by a slight intoxication, an exaltation that is back to yourself. In the dry air that smells of juniper smoke, like the painter in front of the white sheet, a new, empty spirit is born, and therefore open to all possibilities.

Astonishing conjunction between beauty, magic and mystery, moments as well as outside the time when one suddenly feels the happiness of a fleeting eternity. This feeling, which is the opposite of the expert's mind, appears when one abandons oneself to what is. All senses awake, we let ourselves be impregnated by the unbearable beauty of the world. The journey then becomes a path to the discovery that there is no return but an eternal present: every step, every moment, every meeting is apprehended with an open mind and new spirit of the beginner.