Monday 21 April 2014

Remember to Remember

“Imagine your return journey as the last act of an epic story. Which moments gleamed brighter, gave you pause, challenged all your previous beliefs, reconfirmed your belief in the power at the center? How did you happen upon them? Were they self-willed, the result of punctilious planning, or were they serendipitous? Did you feel any strange visitations of joy? Can you recapture them now that you are home?



"Epiphanies sometimes flash and flare for pilgrims, but there are also flickering moments of discovery on your journey, seen out of the corner of your eye. Small joys, humble experiences…



"You knew these things about people and places before you left home, but you had forgotten them. This journey reminded you of the sacred rhythms. How will you remember to remember when you return home?” -Phil Cousineau



My goodness… How does one begin? Where does one begin? An ironic question given that the subject matter at hand is “how does one end such a journey?” But the journey is never really over, is it? These questions make my heart race the same way similar questions did when given to me as a writing exercise from my English teachers. I remember the feeling clearly, for I am feeling it even now, well over ten years later. The prospect of examining one’s thoughts beyond the average depth of the daily requirement; the opportunity to kick the restrictive, proverbial box aside and dive into the unknown waters of one’s creativity; finding new & original ways to describe things; the never-ending, and somewhat futile, challenge of transforming interpretation of experience and emotion into noun, verb and adjective…



Then there’s the flow. My readers may tire of hearing me mention this, but having become consciously aware of this phenomenon, I cannot imagine ignoring it. It is the essence of optimum experience. When I am writing and my disjointed, clumsy beginning turns into a stream-of-consciousness, nearly-other-worldly experience of words appearing before me, as if unbidden by a force greater than myself - for me, that is one of the most powerful flow experiences I can have. To think… that it all begins from a simple challenge to exercise one’s thoughts; a question that beckons my curiosity: “What will you create today, Wordsmith?”



Of all the facets of Christian belief, one of my favorites is the idea of being created in the image of God. While the fact of God’s existence is yet empirically unknown, if there was any evidence for me, it would be the perfect, mathematical designs found in nature (i.e. the Golden Ratio), and my very own desire to create. Should I choose faith over fact, these would be the reasons for doing so.



Only now do I realize that I haven’t even begun to answer Cousineau’s questions. The impact of his questioning alone was enough to put pen to paper. There are so many avenues to explore with this simple excerpt! How thrilling - how marvelous - is the adrenaline of inspiration!

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