12th March 2026

 As the world slips into a warlike mode and we hang on the words of a mentally deranged  American whose utterances sink shafts of fear into our souls and yet funnily, we laugh as well as he messes up his words. But then I was reminded of a book I read many years ago.

The book was written by Helena Norberg-Hodge and is called 'Ancient Futures'.  It is about Ladakh and Tibet, two small countries high in the Himalayas. I remember at the time I read the book seeing wretched photos of the Chinese beating up the Tibetans as they annexed Tibet.

Tibet is a wondrous place of high mountains, narrow valleys where the people live and a way of life so different to ours.  This was where I would travel to if asked.  Though of course its absolute coldness as a frozen desert might put me off.  I loved the way you could run your hand over the large prayer wheels that would line a pathway in a Tibetan monastery.  The sanctity of a religion was strongly felt in this land.  The young boy who would become the Dalai Lama chosen from the people themselves.

In the practice of tolerance, one's enemy is the best teacher.  Sounds about right to me.

Helena Norberg-Hodge has gone on to better things, but the world definitely hasn't and I wonder whose fault it is that turned those people who were ready to fight for good in the 1960s have now turned into the rather greedy society we have today.

Photos courtesy of Wikipedia.

 

Leh Palace in the country of Ladakh

Potala Palace in Llasa once the capital of Tibet now it is referred to as the Tibet Autonomous region

From the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1912 until 1950, Tibet was de facto independent although still claimed by the successor Republic of China. The Republican regime, preoccupied with Warlordism (1916–1928), civil war (1927–1949) and Japanese invasion (1937–1945), was not able to exert authority in Central Tibet. Other regions of ethno-cultural Tibet in eastern Kham and Amdo had been under de jure administration of the Chinese dynastic government since the mid-18th century;^[21] they form parts of the provinces of Quing Hai, Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan.

You Tube - Ancient Futures