Breath of the Plateau

Story Behind the Piece

 

This story began with a walk beneath the open highland sky.

 

It unfolded in the Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in China, on the eastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau. The air is thin but full, carrying the faint drift of chanting, the slow movement of yaks, and the steady calm of the highlands. I stayed in a wooden cabin set against an open stretch of land, dry grass running out toward the distant mountains. The place was quiet, and the quiet held its own kind of truth.

 

 

In town, daily life moved with an unhurried rhythm. Monks in red robes walk along the streets. Prayer beads often rest in their hands or around their necks, repeating mantras as they walk and work. Belief was not separate from life, but woven into it through repetition and habit.

 

I encountered these yak bone beads there, they had once formed a prayer strand, shaped by hands, breath, and time. The beads carried visible traces of use — their surfaces smoothed through touch, holding a muted sheen shaped by countless moments of chanting.

 

People here live simply, shaped by belief and by the land itself. They use what the earth gives—wool to weave, milk to drink, bone for prayer—and in the end they return everything back to the soil. Each evening they gather by the fire, singing in low voices under the wide, cold stars.

 

I brought a few beads back with me. This necklace is a response to that place and its rhythm — the people, their belief in life, and the steady breath beneath it all.

 

In the highlands, even the silence feels alive.