Dolores LaChapelle

The purpose of seasonal

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The purpose of seasonal festivals is periodically to revive the topocosm. Gaster coined this word from the Greek – topo for place and cosmos for world order. Topocosm means the world order of a particular place. The topocosm is the entire complex of any given locality conceived as a living organism, not just the human … Read more

Joy is the response

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Joy is the response of a lover receiving what he loves. This is the joy we feel when skiing powder… This overflowing gratitude is what produces the absolutely stupid, silly grins that we always flash at one another at the bottom of a powder run. We all agree that we never see these grins anywhere … Read more

Powder snow skiing is

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Powder snow skiing is not fun. It is life, fully lived, life lived in a blaze of reality. What we experience in powder is the original human self, which lies deeply inside each of us, still undamaged in spite of what our present culture tries to do to us. Once experienced, this kind of living … Read more

One can never be

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One can never be bored by powder skiing because it is a special gift of the relationship between earth and sky. It only comes in sufficient amounts in particular places, at certain times on this earth; it lasts only a limited amount of time before sun and wind changes it. People devote their whole lives … Read more