Journal Entry 10.17.23
Momentary transformation: Yesterday is was dry and sunny. Overnight we heard torrential rainstorms and thunder and lightening. This morning we awoke to snow on the mountains all around us. Tiny moments are transformative.
I have unbound myself and released myself from those bonds, now I must begin the mapping of who I am and who I want to be no longer defined and shaped by grief and loss. I must look for where the transformation might lie. I must begin to look for signs…
5 Things I know
Sight: the impossibly white light bouncing off of the snow capped mountains in the Himalayas.
Sound: the bells worn by the baby dzo gently tinkling throughout the day and night in the field beside our bedroom.
Smell: the sweet smoke from the yak and dzo dung used for fuel in the wood stove.
Taste: the sweet/sour taste of the ara we drink in the evenings by the wood stove.
Touch: freezing cold hands from water almost frozen combined with deeply sunburned hands from forgetting sunscreen on the most exposed part of my body.
I will begin mapping myself. What do I know about myself? Deeply, truly know without doubt.
I was born in Maine.
My life was defined by travel and living in different cultures.
My life is defined by the cultures I live in in Maine and around the world.
I am a writer.
I am a visual artist.
I am a maker and a doer.
I move slowly through the world so that I can pay attention to the people and the beauty in the world.
I care about people of all sorts regardless of background or circumstance.
I want to see people as they are without artifice.
Pain and suffering are essential to how I have been formed, but I am not defined by that pain.
I love witnessing the evidence of the world.
I am curious.
I am experimental.
The process, the journey are what matter to me most.
I am self focused because my search for self is a search to understand the world.
I use thought and words and mind as my pathway, I use making as a methodology for searching.