Somewhere between the moment I stuffed my last suitcase into a Lyft car in San Diego and my first sip of a dirty chai at a café in Chicago, I realized something profound — I was never meant to sit still.
I knew it! There is a connection between nomadism and creativity. I've been reading and learning a lot about nomads of Inner Mongolia and their lives dealing with the ever present conditions that nature delivers. It is interesting what beliefs they build in interpreting the environment to survive. Outside the Yurt or Ger is only the Eternal Blue Sky, their god; inside the Yurt is a feast of creative visual beauty of colour and imagination with hot milk tea. Outside the Yurt are all the spirits of nature that control all things and hold the secrets of the past. The people are tough and durable with simple but sophisticated intelligence. Lessons we westerners need for ourselves today.
When prospectors panned for gold the water and the silt would swirl within the plate, and slowly, centrifugally, the water would overslip the rim, while sand and gravel and the long sought glinting grains, if any lay within the scoop, would then accumulate at the junction of the base and rim, to reveal themselves by the process of repeated circular washing. Others, less active and less compact, might have thinly spread a mass of mud upon a broad flat surface to let evaporation do its work. For you, the hard rewarding life of prospector: repeated action strips away the dross. I, perhaps unwisely, choose to sit, if possible, not because I foolishly believe that things will not change around me; but because I know they will, and welcome it. Pursue your path, Prospector! May prosperity be yours.
Your journals are gorgeous, Diamond-Michael! I'd sign up in a heartbeat...if my own nomad journal hadn't already stretched to forty-six years, and six million words. OK, that sounds like bragging, but actually I offer it in astonishment about how a simple practice can transform a lifetime. And transformation is what your journal course will provoke. Write on. And, did I ever tell you the story about that time I got lost in Kathmandu? Transcendent moment, spurred on by Google maps! Maybe we should do a live session here on Substack, to discuss how important it is to get lost, and wait for the mud to settle and the water clear.
I knew it! There is a connection between nomadism and creativity. I've been reading and learning a lot about nomads of Inner Mongolia and their lives dealing with the ever present conditions that nature delivers. It is interesting what beliefs they build in interpreting the environment to survive. Outside the Yurt or Ger is only the Eternal Blue Sky, their god; inside the Yurt is a feast of creative visual beauty of colour and imagination with hot milk tea. Outside the Yurt are all the spirits of nature that control all things and hold the secrets of the past. The people are tough and durable with simple but sophisticated intelligence. Lessons we westerners need for ourselves today.
I love the idea of motion itself being a teacher.
When prospectors panned for gold the water and the silt would swirl within the plate, and slowly, centrifugally, the water would overslip the rim, while sand and gravel and the long sought glinting grains, if any lay within the scoop, would then accumulate at the junction of the base and rim, to reveal themselves by the process of repeated circular washing. Others, less active and less compact, might have thinly spread a mass of mud upon a broad flat surface to let evaporation do its work. For you, the hard rewarding life of prospector: repeated action strips away the dross. I, perhaps unwisely, choose to sit, if possible, not because I foolishly believe that things will not change around me; but because I know they will, and welcome it. Pursue your path, Prospector! May prosperity be yours.
Appreciate your thoughts Jackson. Have a great weekend!
Your journals are gorgeous, Diamond-Michael! I'd sign up in a heartbeat...if my own nomad journal hadn't already stretched to forty-six years, and six million words. OK, that sounds like bragging, but actually I offer it in astonishment about how a simple practice can transform a lifetime. And transformation is what your journal course will provoke. Write on. And, did I ever tell you the story about that time I got lost in Kathmandu? Transcendent moment, spurred on by Google maps! Maybe we should do a live session here on Substack, to discuss how important it is to get lost, and wait for the mud to settle and the water clear.