A spirit door

I’m never as aware of the weather as I am while travelling. My spirits turn mercurial: rising and falling with the column of mercury in an imaginary 19th century barometer as it measures the weather around me. As a result I become receptive to spirit doors, one of which you see here.

When we left the dzonkhag (district) of Samdrup Jongkhar in the morning the weather was not uplifting. A fog pressed down on us. The light was perfectly unsuitable for taking photos of small birds very actively flitting about in the dark canopy of the forest which surrounded us. I was morose.

The dark forest seemed to be eager to get rid of us one way or the other. Since the bad light did not speed us on the way it sent clouds of midges at us. The threat of exsanguination worked better than the lack of light, but it was still a while before we left the dzongkhag. The plan was to have lunch a little after noon in a small eatery at the top of a low pass. But it turned out to be closed. The forbidding black door was shut. I liked the house: wooden frame erected first, then mats nailed to it, plastered and painted. External shelves would normally hold plants, but on this windy pass perhaps they don’t survive long. There was no one around. We walked over this mountain pass. It took me a few minutes to register that this was my spirit door: as open and inviting as that black door of the house was not.

The change was almost immediately visible. But then the light changed. The sky turned blue. The forest became a wonderful shade of deep green shot with blues and yellows. It would still be a while before we reached a village where we could stop to eat (and the meal would be stunning). But our spirits had lifted. Some doors connect quite different spaces. This mountain pass was one of them.