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19.12.09
Antarctic Epiphany
We all know what it feels like. A zen-like state of mind, like your taken to a higher dimension, a disconnection with your senses or perhaps a hypersensitivity to them. It's those moments of epiphany that strike when you least expect them. But, most of them don't occur in the middle of an Antarctic desert with a celestial event for back up. Reena (India) talks us through her little epiphany...
Reena (India)'s PodCast:
Link to Podcast
Reena's PodCast in writing:
"Hello it's Reena this time from the Kaspersky Lab Commonwealth Antarctic Expedition. Greetings from Antarctica.
Today was one of the hottest days that we've experienced, like really, really hot. It started off a little bit a cloudy but later it became so hot and then we have a lot of sastrugis like we have to go up and down over. It's a pretty hard day. But in spite of all that we covered good distance. We covered Nav Point 2 - yay! They great thing about reaching Av Point 2 is that now our GPS and a compass will be pointing directly towards the South Pole.
It seems like very, something very great to me. It feels very good that now we have no other Nav Points but heading direct for the South Pole. That means we are coming closer and closer to our goal.
So, you all must be wondering what we do, what I do while skiing for so many hours. Everybody in the expedition, they are carrying iPods or some kind of music with MP3. That's why I decided not to carry any music system because being like from Delhi, there is like 24 hours of noise there sometimes even at night. You'll be hearing all the time, noise, noise, noise so I thought I will just place, this will be my place, my time for peace and quiet and have nothing, no sound at all.
That's good because I do all kinds of things. Like, there are these sastrugis which look like different kinds of shapes of different animals, mostly fish, so I sometimes when I'm walking by them, I just walk with my ski pole and make an eye on them. And the funny things is that as I was making these eyes, Kylie, the other friend of mine, she was making mouths and lips for them. We realized both of us are doing all this which is quite funny.
I think a lot you know, I think of the past and I think of the present and what the future has in mind as long as I am busy. But one thing that I do think a lot about nature and being in this kind of environment, you know like the pure wilderness, it brings you some kind of, it brings you closer and makes you think about something of a greater power that is around and you can actually feel something special. It brings you closer, maybe, to the Creator, or The Power or the Gods.
It doesn't matter what religion you are, but you do feel something special out here and today we saw a halo around the sun and then there was like this snow, crystals of snow falling down on us and it just seemed like a very special moment to me. I think all of us felt something really special. It looked like we were having showers or blessings from the heavens and that really made us feel good."
Photo by Robert Hollingworth