Six Weeks in the Spiti Valley

by Jon Ciliberto

In 2010, the author traveled to a remote, Himalayan part of India to teach English in a Buddhist monastery. This is a book of drawings and notes from the visit. Contains 40+ color images, 30+ b/w images, map, bibliography.

112 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Jimmy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book of Jon's writings and sketches from his time in the Spiti Valley as an English teacher in a Tibetan monastery. His personality really comes through these pages (let me say here as a disclaimer (ha!) that Jon is a friend), that is, someone who is warm, humble, and constantly searching. I don't know anyone who has followed their dreams as much or as fearlessly as Jon has, and he has MANY dreams (including becoming a lawyer, now). His sketches and paintings are so delightful, his lines charming and full of energy and reverence, that it is no wonder he uses his drawings as a way of connecting with people everywhere he travels, and as a way of transcending language borders:

The miraculous is the sudden cessation of certainty, itself needless to say a delusion.

Change: either it is desired, undesired, or not subject to desire

Cloud forms and mountains both so difficult to draw. In attributes, opposite, in all but size: hardness, stillness, changeability. When we exaggerate, it is grown from a molehill, while dreams are floating vapor in a sky. Climbing a mountain it loses its form but gains another through a fight against gravity: it is personalized. Seeing ships and creatures in clouds our minds grow into them...

[Tanya Cassingham · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a delightful little book that I discovered through a friend on Facebook. The author, Jon Ciliberto, spent six weeks at a Buddhist monastery in the remote Himalayan village of Pangmo in Spiti Valley. The book is a collection of drawings,paintings, photographs and stories documenting his journey and his interaction with the nuns and villagers (and one unfortunate incident with a monk). One of the aspects I really like is his telling of the reactions people had to his drawings. Includes typed and handwritten journal entries.