Every moment of light and darkness is a miracle
~ Walt Whitman ~
By now it should come as no surprise that I love telling stories.
Be it through speak, art, the written word,
I like it all.
With the tools at hand, trying out new ways to document experiences, and capture that what moves me.
The things that inspire me, are often subject to change. But such is the nature of all things.
This is what I want to talk about today.
About how journeys change me.
And about capturing those journeys.
I’m not just talking journeys in the physical sense, but especially the spiritual.
Scoping the subconscious trough meditation.
Venturing through mystical worlds of fantasy.
Curiously exploring the realms of the metaphysical.
Several key-words that come to mind are;
Dreams, thought-experiments, visualization, imagination, déjà vu
and of course introspection; shining a light on the treasures of the inner self.
And finding a way to translate some of it to the outside.
If that all sounds a bit too woolly, just think films, books, music and any other form of art really;
All manifestations of one’s inner world.
Since our direct surrounding greatly impacts our experience, the physical world can serve as a playground, with essential building blocks for imagination.
What does one see, hear, smell, taste?
Information gathered from the senses enriches our inner self, and can influence the mind. That’s what really makes me tick.
What it is you feel?
How have you grown?
What did you find within yourself?
Through travel I’ve come to an important insight about journeys.
But I’ll admit;
sometimes that insight slips away, or somehow gets snowed under.
When that happens, I have to dig deep within, or maybe talk with a close friend,
to actively remind myself to:
Embrace that life,
the journey,
is both light and darkness…
For me a balanced life, or happiness, lies in the understanding that joy and sadness are equally precious.
This balance may be resembled by a sinusoidal function; with equal surfaces above and below the x-axis.
Equal parts positive as negative (in mathematical sense).
Equal parts light and shadow.
Acceptance of what is.
Accepting what is now.
The line we walk, continuously rising and falling. Lifting us up, and bringing us down.
Though hardly easy,
I’ve found that embracing the whole spectrum of emotion,
yielded me some of my most profound experiences.
Experiences that latched to my soul, and became part of my personal history.
I’ve felt overwhelming beauty in sadness for instance,
not only in the uplifting energy of joy.
Those experiences, those memories, are the among the few things I feel I truly own in this world.
The things in this life that (besides my body) are actually mine.
So I cherish them.
During my long walk across the North American continent, I had so much time and space to explore the corners of my inner self, that it was inevitable I’d get in touch with my darker sides at some point.
The stuff that is often deemed unattractive in Western society.
Feelings which sometimes are not all that welcome.
Feelings which many determinedly try to push away.
Feelings that are often labeled as negative.
Anxiety.
Anger.
Sadness.
Shame.
The continuous physical exertion on the trail tested my body and spirit in new ways.
Slowly uncovering the darker shades of the spectrum residing within.
As if sweeping through a dusty attic, stumbling across the things filed away that I’d rather not think about.
My shadow-sides.
Sometimes I go back over to my dark place…
For in my life I have wandered the shadow-lands plenty.
Yes, I’ve danced with my demons.
But in facing the shadows, and cultivating more familiarity with them, I feel more balanced.
And from the shadows even, a stream of inspiration arose.
I started thinking about writing a series of articles.
Of this particular series, I even uploaded the first on Mind Stories, while I was still in California. A second article followed soon after.
But not long after posting them online, I realized both articles lacked context.
I hadn’t let enough time pass, for those experiences to precipitate.
To see with clarity what they meant.
The experiences too fresh, too new, not yet fully integrated.
So I took the articles offline, shelved them, and waited…
Back home I was able to solidify my internal thought-process.
The seemingly chaotic cloud of ideas settled.
Murky water became clear.
Pieces of a story started to take shape.
And so I find myself now, ready to share with you,
my personal take on the monomyth, the hero’s journey.
Inspired by both light,
and dark.
The first article in the 7-part series:
:
Letters to Yara
