Having a fondness for both Buddhism and shamanism, I've set up a Mongolian ovoo on the slope behind our house. The ovoo (pronounced oh-boo) is nominally part of Buddhist worship in Mongolia, but it's actually a holdover from the pre-Buddhist days of shamanism and nature worship in that windswept and timeless land. An ovoo shrine is established at a special point where, it's believed, the spirits reside or settle. The shrine is made with a tall, thin center pole harvested from a tree trunk, then heaped with stones around the base and adorned with Buddhist prayer scarves called katas (pronounced kah-tahs) or khadags. You may have seen the Dalai Lama presenting katas to people on television. They're ceremonial scarves that are gifted as a blessing to honor visitors or those of high rank.
In Mongolian the word ovoo means "heap," but in Chinese it means "magnificent bundle." Ovoos were discouraged or forbidden during Communist rule in Mongolia, but with the recent relaxing of restrictions, ovoos are making a comeback.
The favored color of katas for Mongolian shrines is sky blue, an indication of their veneration for the sky spirit Tennger or Tengri, but we went with white and green for our ovoo as a nod to the fact that ovoos venerate not just the sky but the mountains. Although they're a symbol of the windswept plains, ovoos are also said to play an important part in mountain worship, which is certainly appropriate to our location. The central pole for our ovoo was purchased at the town feed store--hopefully harvested locally, and since it was lightweight, albeit too long to put on top of our vehicle, it was easier for my husband to simply carry it home as we live only a mile from the store. We liked the interesting knots in the wood of the pole. Being in the Rockies, of course there's no lack of rocks for the base cairn and we expect it to get larger over time as we continue to add to it.
In Buddhist belief, when prayer flags (called Wind Horses) or kata scarves flutter in the wind, they release the prayers written on them out to the world, sending blessings far and wide. The miscellaneous items left at ovoos are not litter. Sometimes it's in thanks for a healing or other favorable event--for instance, leaving crutches no longer needed, or an infant's item to mark a birth. As with Buddhist shrines such as the Great Stupa of Dharmakaya at the Rocky Mountain Shambhala Center near Red Feather Lakes, visitors leave a little something in passing to honor the sacredness of the shrine, and to take themselves out of their ego, if only momentarily. Just looking at the motley nature of offered items alone can be worth the trip to see the stupa.
Ovoos are little known in the West, and there's not even a huge amount of information on the internet. Most of what's known in the West comes from those who've traveled through Mongolia. It's said that a Mongolian must never pass an ovoo without stopping to pay respects. If the traveler is on horseback, he or she must dismount, make an offering (leaving a bit of money or sweets, cutting a few strands from the horse’s tail to tie to the ovoo, or pouring out a small libation of vodka or milk), and then add a stone to the base. Other sources say that travelers must circle the ovoo three times clockwise and make a small offering to ensure a safe journey, although if one is in a hurry, honking the car horn while driving by is said to be sufficient to honor the shrine (!). It's believed that adding a kata to a Mongolian ovoo is especially good luck.
Although I have to admit that right now our ovoo looks more like a Boy Scout flagpole than a sacred shrine, I still get a kick out of seeing it flutter outside my office window. It's right beside a game trail and pleasant to watch the mule deer and wild turkeys file down the hill past it.
Along with Siberia, Mongolia is one of the last outposts of shamanism in the world. The plains, the mountains, the cold, the herds of horses--all of it looks so much like the American West that it sparks a kinship inside me whenever I look at the photos, making me feel right at home in honoring the nature spirits. So Mongolia does call to me...but that's a post for another time.
Top photo: Ovoo on the plains of Mongolia, via iStock
Middle photo: Ovoo on our property by Lisa Hutchins
Bottom photo: Mongolian horses in front of yurt, via Wikimedia Commons
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