Through My Eyes
Thursday April 24
( At the onpo's!)
" A woman came into the room carrying a large book covered on both sides with unhinged, elaborately carved wooden covers. The book was as long as the onpo's arm but no wider than his open hand. Unwrapping the yellow cloth that bound the book, the onpo began to flip through the loose,excessively decorated pages of wooden-block prints. The black-inked images were of hands,stars and detailed charts of the heavens.
The onpo finally spoke. " This book is five hundred years old," he told us. "Seven hundred pages, with text on both sides. One thousand,four hundred pages in all. At the time of marriage I take the boy's and girl's birth dates and tell them when to wed. I can also tell you when to be cremated. Yes, the right time to do everything."
He went on to tell us about reading the North Star, about amulets he gave to people of ill temperament. He studied both the stars, or "the outside," as he called it, and the body, which he called "the inside." He asked my birth date and then checked my birth star. One's birth star points to different parts of the body and tells how one's health will be for the next while. If the star points to the mouth, one could die in a year. Lungs are luckier. They represent a long life.
The onpo was not happy with what he saw in my stars. Maybe I would get more headaches, maybe some other illnesses. The news was not the best. In the end I paid the onpo in his usual currency: a bottle of rum. Dechen told me on the way home that the onpo did all his sessions in the morning. In the afternoon, he was in no shape to see the future, let alone focus on the page in front of him. "I promise to add more tomorrow (we can read from Sarangerel's book over the weekend) ...
* This is once again from Art Perry's book the Tibetans