Bardo Travel: Writings on Experience and Place
“A bardo is a transition or gap — a space where transformation can occur.”
Articles
-
Ancestor Worship: An Impression
Only a scattering of passing places and the odd small car park allowed the vehicles brief progress. But nobody was in a hurry; our destinations were not going anywhere. We were all here to visit the dead.
-
The Journey into Something
And what pleasure! What an indefinable sense that in the outing of the inner in the form of writing a union occurred; he felt whole. Boundaries became not porous but non-existent, the joy of concentration felt timeless, without regard to past or future. At what point, he wondered, would this cease?
-
Meandering Sweet: Out now!
My first book, Meandering Sweet: Walking up the River Tay is out now – available online and at selected booksellers across Tayside. The book tells the story of my walk to the source of the River Tay back in 2020. It hopes to entertain and inform but also inspire: if one reader goes on their…
-
Tibet is Here
It was the sort of flight which would crash, I reasoned: a random, once-a-week route to a remote area where Tibetan independence protests often took place. An old aircraft, difficult mountains. It probably wasn’t an economic route for anyone. A crash would be a good reason to cancel it altogether.
-
Chinese Whispers
When I leave the hotel early each morning, walking out into still air, there is the crack of a whip.
-
Exploring Dandong: A View into North Korea
I had come to Dandong in China’s northeast to see the Yalu River, the natural border separating China and North Korea, but had not reckoned on Dandong itself.
-
A Winter River
The morning of the freeze there is beeverish activity on the river. What was yesterday a moving body of water is today as hard as stone. Groups of sweepers with brooms walk upon the ice, brushing away the snow which has come with the overnight freeze.
-
A Walk Around a Lake in Shenyang…
Siberian gusts blow dry leaves which swirl and scratch along the paving slabs around the man’s tai-chi slippers. Dressed in a baggy blue felt tracksuit, his movements are slow and graceful. He is aware of my sitting watching him but makes no obvious sign of feeling observed. I know nothing about tai-chi but sense he…
-
Walking St Cuthbert’s Way
According to the British Pilgrimage Trust, any walk becomes a pilgrimage if the walker sets an intention. An intention could mean asking for help, expressing gratitude, or thinking through a problem. Travelling on foot with not only geographical and physical goals but also personal ones resonated with me.
-
Shaoshan: The Birthplace of Chairman Mao
The strangeness of visiting Shaoshan had appealed to me. Since his death in 1976 the idea of Mao Zedong has been in flux. All over China he is visible: his face on every bank note, his portrait on the wall of Tiananmen Square near where his embalmed corpse lies, often with a line of weeping…
Bardo travel: Writings on experience and place 