Journey: A Creative Prompt
A new meditation from Fran Gardner. "Where would you go, now, today, if you could just lace up your magical sandals and walk off the page?"
Journey
I have been fascinated by the image of monks and chickens. I wrote a story about a young monk who traveled with two chickens, exchanging eggs for other food and having adventures.
Our lives, all our lives, are journeys. The arc of time, moving (as far as we know) forward, pulls us from place to place. We journey from our bed to the kitchen in the morning. We drive to work, take the bus, travel on the trans-Siberian railroad, well, just because.
Most journeys we don’t even think about. Drive to the store to buy some eggs. Give a lift to a saffron-robed monk.
Other journeys are epic. That road trip. Hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. Tracking a coyote through the woods. Traveling far inward at a Zen retreat.
Do you dream of journeys? I do. All the places I would like to go but never will. Disability has taken care of that.Â
And I dream of all the places I have been that I would like to see again. But I probably never will.
Journeys are makers of regrets. Why didn’t I take that fork in the road? I see a tantalizing street vista from the bus and know I will never come back to explore it.Â
Places to journey
The exotic markets of other countries, other times. Spices and vegetables, tomatoes as bright as rubies.
The Silk Road, the Trail of Tears, the pilgrimage to a sacred places, the joyful vacation in a warm, sandy locale.Â
Where would you go, now, today, if you could just lace up your magical sandals and walk off the page?
Carnival in Rio. Hot springs in Iceland. Yak milk in Mongolia. Fields of agates on a high plateau in Oregon.
Spin the dial. Tell Google you’re feeling lucky. Throw a dart at a world map. Mercator projection? Whatever works.Â
Get ready for the journey. Pack the toothbrush, the camera and the pajamas.Â
Find something to read on the bus, or the train, or the flatbed truck.
You are already close to your destination, closer than you realize. Soon you will cross the threshold.Â
The horizon is rushing to meet you. Just raise your head and look, far beyond.
Your journey has become a destination.
The next meditation will be on Horizon
Click here to read Weight, the previous creative prompt.
Read more from Fran at Becoming….
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Fran, you take some of the most magnificent journeys just around your local environments, noting flowers or infrastructural sights that most of us take for granted. I've met people who've been all over the world, but they didn't internalize much about the local cultures. Yet, our own neighborhoods harbor mysteries waiting to be discovered and could be the source of daydreams for those storm days when we can't get out of the house.