“The heart of the person before you is a mirror. See there your own form.” 
-Shinto Saying

Over the past year I've made it a goal to sift back through 1000s of photos from the past 7+ years, images that span 3 continents, over 21 countries and countless cultures and people. I began with old assignments from WKU, projects from 3 newspapers, then jumped to South Korea, SE Asia and finally Africa. During this process, I began to recognize images that felt similar to me, the gesture of the hand throw back in a moment of abundant joy is identical in a young American girl as it is in novice Buddhist monk in Thailand. I've sat in silence with wise women watching the world go by from the comfort of their front porch in a remote Karen Hill Tribe in Northern Thailand with Mamma Mo's work roughened hand holding mine and in the Appalachian region of Eastern Kentucky with Aunt Susie silently nodding off. Kind, strong women with the lines of hardship and joy etched into their faces. I also began to see amusing and sometimes disturbing juxtaposition of every day life; jobs, expectations of motherhood and the expression of love. 

Over the next few weeks I'm going to post the best of these, combining images from all over the world into diptychs that begin to contextualize individual lives into a universal tapestry. 

I hope you enjoy! 

(Left) A Young Nepali mother at Boudhanath Stupa, Kathmandu, Nepal.
(Right) Jeane, 2, and her mother, Deanne York prepare for the Cordell Hull Festival Pageant in Byrdstown Tenn.

It was one of those nights you knew would live like a ghost in your memory to be called up by the tinkle of Nepali music or smell of cheap cigarettes or a sorely out of place Irish pub plopped in the middle of Asia. And one of us will say, remember that time when...we showered for the first time in weeks, and shared that delicious Greek salad and peanut sauce satay and Nepali milk tea and chocolate cake with ice cream and chicken milk at that little Italian restaurant that we went to so often they greeted us by name and made special farewell coffee drinks for us? Or maybe it will be the brush of warm feet, or golden streaks in shaggy hair, or the telling of long stories and hard questions that will remind me.
We flew from Lukla to Kathmandu at 10am and it was like a stereo had been switched on to blaring. A part of me felt an odd sense of welcome, a strange happiness to see this dirty jumble of humanity. As if I had come home and yet not. And then the noise, the honking, the bargaining and shouting and dodging peddlers and puddles and bikes towing large carriages and manic taxi drivers became overwhelming and I was longing for the cool quiet mountains again.
We took a taxi to a sacred river where bodies are burned and then swallowed in its depth and final farewells are said. Hurt and wounded and crippled people lined the block around the welfare house begging for money and food and I could not take a picture. I could not take away their dignity. The very act of taking a photo for myself, of displaying their pain seemed selfish. It is one of the only times I have felt this way, felt that without a purpose, without a message, without giving back in some way my photographs would be exploitative. Their misery washed through me, one small cry that expressed the misery of the whole world.
As the evening light fell I made my way to the river side milling around and feeling a wee bit useless. One beautifully winkled old lady in colorful Nepali dress took my hand and led me with her and laid out a grain bag for me to sit on as if she had been expecting me. Other women plopped down around us in front of what I gathered from hand gestures and random English words is a building where the old go to die. Behind the cool wall lining my back lay wrinkled and age wizened bodies waiting for the final breathes of their spirit to slip away peacefully and join with the slow moving swirls of the river. The group of women chatter aimlessly at me in Nepali, touching my arms, my hair, and happily smearing a red, slightly sour smelling goop on my forehead and hair in a blessing. I gather that something is going to happen and that we are waiting and that when it does happen i am to take pictures, but not now. So I sit with them as they hum softly, swaying with their movement, receiving curious stares from other foreigners, thinking how I must look, one strange girl tightly encircled by brightly dressed old Nepali women. Blessed. As the last glint of light skims the horizon they each get up slowly and begin to dance in a pool of golden light, me in tow. Their beautiful dark wrinkled skin turned golden by the street light, swirling silhouettes against an incredibly blue blue sky.
They were my angels. I don't care why they took my hand and led me with them to the river, but their kindness touched my heart and in that poignant moment we were literally perched there, on the stone steps, in between life and death. What is life but a flamboyant balancing act that will eventually tip over into death? And so to thank them for welcoming me like a daughter I did what they asked me to and what I do best, took pictures, praying that one of them would express the channel of love flowing from my heart to theirs and back again.

The clouds creep up the mountain valley enveloping our little teahouse in its grip and rubbing its fluffy belly along the tin roof causing it to creak and groan. These noises wake me in the mornings as we prepare to set off for Gorak Shep. Our path follows that of the river, retracing its footsteps upward and following the corridor it etched between the mountains. When it descends we rise and when it rises we descend. We leave its side to hike higher to Namche and Periche but always we follow it higher until its gurgles are transformed into ice and finally at Base Camp, into blue solid glacier.
This trip was one of the most incredible experiences of my life! We were literally hiking MACHINES! Well ok, I have a confession to make, I am a wee bit of a hiking Nazi,...and I sorta hauled poor Inge along behind. But in my defense the trekking itinerary had us only hiking 2-3hrs a day! OK sure sure its all up one huge mountain, but come on that's totally sissy! So i did a lil makeover of the hiking itinerary plans and added on just a measly 5 or 6 or 7hrs of hiking each day...made sure we took our acclimatising days when we needed to and stayed within the 1000ft altitude...and wallah! We made it up in 5.5 days (*cough* usually it takes 10 days) and we hiked out in 2 days (it usually takes 5 days!). Again in my defense that 12hr hike from Gorak Shep to Namche was ALL Inge's idea!! You know you're doing good when Sherpas and guides are impressed with your speed.
I'm pretty sure we ate Nepal out of house and home, but dang do you get hungry when you're going up a mountain! After 8hrs of plodding along we were ravenous by the time we hit Gorak Shep and everything and anything looked delicious! (Inge even started eyeballing the poor yaks along side the road and made "friends" with the Sherpa boy totting 15 laying hens in his basket. I'm not sure she could have eaten them all but it would have been fun to see her try!). I have never tasted a more delicious snack of peanut butter and honey pancake dunked in Garlic soup, lemme tell ya! What you don't believe me?! It's definitely one winning combination you've just gotta try!
The next day we hot the trail for Base Camp and lost it a few hours in under a huge rock avalanche and I couldn't pick it back up for the life of me! I tried everything, brought out my measly tracking skills following the footsteps of the hikers from yesterday, I skidded to and fro on the rock covered glacier exploring every nook and cranny until I nearly took a nose dive into a big sink hole, I even followed the trail of yak poo with my nose up the ridge that outlined the path the pack animals had taken. Nothing. So after surveying the mountain enclosed valley and finding a ridge strung with a million prayer flags, we plopped ourselves down and declared this ground "Base Camp." We munched on the Snickers bars that we had totted all the way up for just this jubilant moment, did victory dances, and photo shoots and swore to never breathe a word of our base camp confusion. We were relieved to discover later that we HAD found Base Camp (of sorts) and that due to the monsoon and rock avalanches the terrain had change significantly.
And so completes the story of how two goofy, camera totting twerps marched 70+ miles up a mountain with few showers and even fewer changes of clothes (haha) and how on one snowy July morning they found themselves hooting and hollering in triumph from a perch at the Top of the World!

Blessed. That's the word that keeps popping into my mind again and again as I sit here in my small teahouse bedroom listening to the sounds of the mountain stream outside my window. Oh, how I am blessed. If I were to keel over this very minute it would be with a silly smile plastered all over my face!
We landed in Lukla like giddy children hopping to get underway. On our way up, we met a local man who kindly slowed his pace to guide us along the starlit trail, one he knew by heart from his younger sherpa days. We stumble into Phakding a little soggy around the edges, our newborn hiking legs feeling deliciously sore. After filling our bellies with hot milk tea and Dal Bhat we curled up under our quilts and fell asleep to the gentle sounds of the woods and river and not one single honking horn!!
I can safely say I underestimate the climb to Namche Bazaar. In my head, 200m looked tame, but when you stack all that altitude into one tiny spot in the form of a big, never-ending mountain, it takes on a whole new perspective. We hit the mountain with a spring in our step, but after an hour of climbing we were being passed by plodding sherpas carrying their weight in huge packs strapped across their foreheads. Another hour and I was studiously emulating their plodding step and the S shaped path they cut across the trail. Finally, bend after heartbreaking bend that only revealed yet another section of the mountain we had yet to climb, we came around the corner and there perched on the side of the mountain was the U shaped village of Namche Bazaar! Assah! We were greeted by two super adorable village child carry miniature sticks (pic#5)who came running at us excitedly and started whacking at our legs with their small weapons and giggling uncontrollably! Yes...I know they look like miniature ANGELS but really under those cute cherub faces are foreigner beaters in the making!;)