Harry the Human: Robert embarks for Bhutan, with daily updates

Thursday, November 28, 2024

Robert embarks for Bhutan, with daily updates

As I've made clear, I'm happy to spend the next two weeks on my front porch rocker staring at the San Gabriel Mountains, leaving this quixotic journey to my altered-ego D.L. (who will post about it on https://laskenlog.blogspot.com/) and his unexpected travelling companion, my later-in-life buddy Robert the Telepathic Gila Monster. I have no desire to accompany Robert, who finagled a free ride with D.L. and his skeptical wife, based on his insistence that he has been assigned a mission by the deity residing on Funeral Peak in our own Funeral Mountains near Death Valley (named Tab B - see below for more on the name) to commune with the mountain god (named InsertHere - see below) of Bhutan's highest peak, Gangkhar Puensum, hundreds of miles north of D.L.'s tour. How he will get through airport security, or deal with Bhutan's prohibition against mountain climbing (which is believed to disturb montain deities) is not my concern. I hereby turn over my blog to Robert, as his life has become more interesting than mine. Don't worry about me. I'll be continuing my regime of dreamy contemplation and frequent naps.

All the best, Harry the Human

Here begins Robert's journal of his trip to Bhutan

Day 1

Hi everybody! My usual gloom is gone, as I leave the daily grind of the desert for an environment of rapid change and uncertainty.

I'm curled up in D.L.'s carry-on, chilling in the LAX terminal after using my exceptional mental powers to make myself invisible in the security stations. I fight claustrophobia by exchanging updates with the Bhutanese mountain god, InsertHere (keep reading for more on the name) a visit to whom is the purpose of this journey, at least for me. D.L. has no escape from his "reality." While he frets over the geo-political environment contemporaneous with our trip, I am able to absorb the bigger, "divine" picture, where our immediate world is a nanosecond to the gods. D.L., as a human, does not understand that we mortals are indirect reflections of godhood, of its expressions through nanosecond-long infinities. I don't know how else you could tolerate an airport terminal.

That's it for now. I'll get back to you later tonight with my observatons, if any, about streaking across the sky in a human contraption.

Your Reptilian Servant, Robert

Day 2

I can add to D.L.'s musings about the people in the Taipei airport: No one is thinking about China. They are thinking about how tired they are, how nice it would be to have a private jet catered with haute cuisine (not bizarre "french toast" wrapped in foil) and exit procedures that don't involve crowds of humans attempting to file through the eye of a needle.

I would think, "Wait 'til I tell my fellow gila monsters what human life is like!", but I don't have an audience in my fellow gilas. They regard me as mad for associating with another species, especially this one. Nevertheless, I have chosen a path and must continue.

Another observation: We gilas are sensitive to what humans vaguely refer to as "spirits" or "gods," and I was curious how the spirits of the air have faired with human aircraft invading their realms. As we roared across the Pacific at 35,000 feet, I let my telepathic senses creep beyond the fuselage into the stratosphere, where I sensed, well, nothing. Whatever spirits had roamed up there are gone. Whether they are dead or displaced I could not tell. More on this if I attain further awareness. Meanwhile, after D.L. and Susan finish their ablutions at the Bangkok hotel, I look forward to joining them- incognito of course- in inspecting the bars and massage parlours which, I gather, are a major draw in this tropical land. Your Faithful Reptilian Reporter, Robert the Telepathic Gila Monster.

Day 3

It turned out D.L. and his wife did not share my interest in bars, et al, so D.L.'s post for our 48 hours in Bangkok is perhaps more educational than mine. I did not delve into cultural stuff but remained secluded in the hotel room, as I am not concerned much with distinctions between humans, just as you may not want to hear lengthy explanations of local differences between gila monster cultures (yes, there are differences). I continue focussed on today's flight to Bhutan, where my quest to contact local deities will commence. I'll get back to readers soon! Best, Robert the Telepathic Gila Monster

Day 4

Here we are in Bhutan! I just read D.L.'s meditations on the Buddhist conception of demons and of the relationship between good and evil. It's relevant to me because technically I'm a "beast," a candidate for demon and thus potentially evil. All I can say is that the concepts of good and evil are not found in the "animal world," to which I belong. We just exist. If we want to eat something, we eat it. It's a question of surviving, not of being good or evil.

Meanwhile I'm not getting much sympathy for my quest to visit a mountain god hundreds of miles north of D.L's tour. It doesn't matter. I've been communing with dozens of gods here. They are very aware of changes coming their way. When D.L. took me yesterday to the world's biggest statue of Buddah (129 feet tall) in Thimphu, I encountered dozens of gods swirling around the temple beneath the statue, in which are 125,000 tiny statues of Buddha, representing Buddha natures that exist down to the atomic level. It was thrilling, but from a gila monster's point of view, the gods are not always omnipotent or omniscient; we need to feel that they are to assuage our terror at the seeming chaos of all we see. I'm just saying.

D.L. found a book in the lobby shop at Thimphu's Museum of Textiles about phallus worship in Bhutan. One page showed nude men dancing around a bamboo phallus, chanting about their "thunderbolts of wisdom." D.L. is choosing not to write about this, timid soul that he is. I put it out there not because I derive any particular meaning from such narcissistic meditations, but because I wonder what females might call the vagina. How about, "Receptacle of the Thunderbold of Wisdom?" No? Sorry, I am a gila monster after all. I think D.L. is sorry he took me on this trip. Too late now.

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