Places

How do you find anchor when your words have become a sea?

Pondering these images helps me think on this as they show the place where my current writing project began. Here, some words came, and were recorded with a pencil on paper, by oil lamp. There was a simplicity here which allowed something to start happening, and particular words came into sharp focus. Place seems important.

Today, listening to Josh Garrells, I feel stirred about this sense of place again, feel connected to three specific places around the planet, and three clear, simple things come onto focus: the start of things, the essence in things, and the fruit from things. The oil lamp place signifies all three, but separate, they go like this:

Bristol, where I was when this music discovered me. The start of things in many ways, as Bristol is a constant, and the place where I return to again and again. In the time I have lived here, it has been a home of continual renewal and redemption. It remains the same, and repeats its themes. After all this time, it is still a symbol of new beginnings. The start of things.

North Island, New Zealand with my friend Shirl, where we listened to this music on a road trip and talked through the essence of expression and how to walk out your own with integrity. We talked about fruit, and seemed to be referring to fruit yet to grow, but which we hoped for. Josh provided a catalyst for this conversation as we wound down into Raglan. As Shirl and I live on opposite sides of the planet, wherever we are on our spiritual journeys, these rare times of being physically together necessarily entail talk which goes straight to the middle of things. The essence in things.

And Portland, Oregon, where this music comes from, and where I spent some time a couple of years ago. Portland, more than most other places I have been, exists with a spaciousness entirely comfortable with the progression of things. It is a place which homes people happy to ask questions, and for that reason it was a precious place for me to go with mine. It has a gentleness about it, and if you are not letting your heart run free a little with possibility, you can get the sense that you're missing something brilliant. Portland is full of things growing, and I treasure it deeply as a place – a nourishing harbour. During my stay there, some tiny, tiny shoots appeared. They bear fruit today. The fruit from things.

Today's soundtrack connects me to important places, and the physical, solid ground truth of those places describes the start of things, the essence in those things, and the fruit from things. This, today, is how I find anchor when I have started to go adrift in a sea of words.

{Today's Soundtrack: Josh Garrells}