Free Losar E-card Advice for the Iron Tiger Year

This year Losar coincides with Valentines Day.  There must be a good reason for this.

The last time an Iron Tiger (lcags stag) year came around, His Holiness the Dalai Lama was made the leader of Tibet.  He was 15 at the time, and that was 60 years ago.  Tibetans by tradition have Jovian cycles called rabjung instead of assuming the centuries we've been brainwashed into accepting over the, well, over the... centuries I guess we'll have to say.

If you are one of those dozens of people out on the web at the last minute looking for a free e-card to send to friends on Losar, you can just slide this one off the blog page and into the body of an email.

If you're feeling more inventive, I'm sure you can do better, so why not go to 

http://www.freetigerpictures.com/ (expired link)

or maybe here

http://www.copyright-free-photos.org.uk/tigers/index.htm

and take one of their many photos, like I did, and then add your own words to it, using photoshop?  Well, why the hell not?  Your friends and family will appreciate homemade better than store-bought any day of the year.

I recommend taking one that has the tiger looking calm and serene, relaxed, with its mouth closed.  I don't think you want your holiday greeting to traumatize your friends out of their wits now, do you?

Oh, and I hope all Tibetans and all people of goodwill everywhere who feel concern for their future will find good reason for hope.  Soon.  We'll celebrate some.  And we'll pray.  But we'll also do our best to do something that will make a difference.  Buddha taught that things don't last, and if that holds true at all, it surely does for intolerable situations.

I'll see y'all again before long.  Meanwhile, visit these fresh new Losar blog entries for inspiration:  This one, this one, this one and this one. This article in the Bhutanese newspaper Kuensel also has an interesting bit on some special Bhutanese observances.  And if it's Ladakh you're concerned about, this piece offers an explanation for why they have already celebrated Losar two months ago.  Most of the rest that I could find here and there on the web was a little disappointing, but feel free to schmoogle or scroogle* for yourself.

(*Scroogle is a cookie crumbler, if you want to know.)

Losar eCard

What makes this year different from other years?

By now it would appear that the movement to give up Losar — Tibetan New Year — celebrations has gained considerable momentum among Tibetans everywhere.  Some may see contradictions in today's blog, or even reactionary impulses. I fail to see any. Losar observances will without doubt be carried out in every Tibetan home this year more or less as they always have been.  The very idea that there won't be any Losar is, let's admit it, a little bit like calling off Christmas in a Christian community. Not very likely. But I think what we are going to see this year are less of the public 'celebratory' parts of Losar than usual.  The simple reason is the grief of the previous year (unless you've been sleeping like Rip Van Winkle, you'll know its reasons). For more on the problems with New Year this year, read this blog by Agam's Gecko. The news from Lhasa and eastern Tibet in recent days is disheartening. Don't think for a moment that anything about the Tibet situation has been resolved. Not at all. When Beijing isn't displaying its anxiety, it's indulging in denial. And if you have questions about what Tibetan New Year is, or in more ordinary times would be, there might be a few answers in this post from last year.

If you have Tibetan friends, why not send them a Losar eCard on or before the new moon of February 25th? I wasn't able to get my Tibetan fonts to work together with photoshop, but perhaps you will have more success with that. If you would like to add your own message to the card, download this uninscribed version by double-clicking and sliding it onto your computer desktop

Then import it into Photoshop and see what you can do with it. Or take your own photo of an ox-like creature if you don't think highly of mine. I know a lot of you have been searching the internet in vain in hopes of finding Losar eCards. I know. I have my sources.  

But now that I look, I see there are a couple of ready-made cards for the Earth Ox over at "Tibet Cafe." Never mind. I spoke too soon. It happens.

If your Tibetan friends are living a place without fast internet connections, do them a favor and print your cards out on photo paper and drop them in the mail.  If you act quickly there may still be time.

This Losar will begin the 23rd year of the 17th rabjung.  Some have developed the custom to number the year from the first year in the reign of the first Tibetan Emperor Nyatritsenpo.  They would call it the year 2136. If you have read this far, consider this to be my Losar eCard to you this year. We'll just leave it without any labels, or call it Tea-Coloured Light.  Let's say its rays symbolize hope in all its audacity.