what are we losing?

A few weeks ago I visited Newport, Rhode Island, where I enjoy visiting the mansions periodically. There were a few more houses I had not yet visited, so I spent the day touring three of them. One of the houses, somewhat more modest in size and decor than, say, The Breakers, neighbors a strip mall.

Our tour guide explained that the original house next to it was demolished to make the parking lot for that strip mall, and that the city had intended to demolish the still-standing home to build a CVS. Their reasoning? The CVS would be paying higher taxes than the historic home. But really, who travels to Newport to visit the CVS? Clearly, the city came to and got their priorities straight by choosing a different location for that store, but it is saddening to think that a structure with such significant historic importance could be so easily cast aside in favor of a redundant national business.

But it is not only CVS, and it is not only Newport. Residents in Turkey felt similar sentiments when their city attempted to turn their beloved community park into a shopping mall.

photo by Eda Gunay

And in Lhasa, Tibet: another shopping mall is currently being built over the oldest and most well-known part of the city, the Barkhor Market.

 

photo by Tsering Woeser

We humans are already so destructive. We don’t need more. We have everything we need. My wish is that we learn to favor new experiences and self-improvement in the form of education and physical well-being over material goods.

night sky

 

Star of the Hero, Nicholas Roerich

I may just have the best view out my bedroom window that I have ever had, or at least the most serene. Each day I can look out onto the pond and watch beautiful white swans resting on the still water, as a pair was tonight, with a golden sliver of the moon and Venus by its side in the sky above. There is little development on this end of the pond and being at the end of a long sandy road, it is completely void of traffic noise, except for a boat or two going by during the day. Tonight the air is very still and I hear only some evening insects. The night time sky fascinates me. In fact, it is the subject of my favorite painting, Night Flight of Dread and Delight, by Ethiopian artist Skunder Boghossian:

One of the most beautiful things I ever saw consists of a night I experienced in Tibet last year:

    I was walking up the hill after dark toward the house in which I was staying and I could see the full moon rising through the valley between two mountains. There were clouds, none covering the brightness, but simply intensifying the illumination throughout the sky. I came around the corner from my favorite restaurant and saw the moon reflecting off one side of the white stupa, lighting everything between it and moon. I had never seen a brighter night sky. The air was so calm and the stars so close, I felt as if I were in a dream. 
 

                                                             (That was the moment I realized why they call it the roof of the world!)