Traveling Through with David Prior · Thursday, July 30, 2026
Needleman shares her experience in Varanasi, India, describing it as a profoundly spiritual and apocalyptic place where life and death are openly present. Despite its intensity and sensory overload, she found it to be a place of immense power and a snapshot of humanity.
“Although I didn't hate it, it was just, you know, I felt like, so you know, var Nazi is where people bring their dead loved ones to be burnt on a funeral pyre. It's on the Ganges.”
“There's all these spiritual seekers there and it's a magnificent place, but it is so foreign and it felt so apocalyptic, like I don't think I would bring myself to go there, and it was hard to fully process it. But it was magical and spiritual and just like the fog, the boats bringing tons of wood for these funeral pyres and people are burning and it doesn't smell bad.”
“It just feels like the beginning of humanity and the end of humanity, and it's just like a lot like again, just a picture of humanity full stop.”