a hundred quirky legs

( … among other places.)

Once when I was a little child, I was at my father’s parents’ house when a friend of theirs brought a beautiful shining crystal. Their friend, my grandparents explained to me, was a Strahler – a mountaineer and a seeker of crystals and gemstones. What a vocation! I was enchanted, and for a while, when asked what I wanted to become later in life, I answered that I would be a Strahler. And, by another route, isn’t that what I became? Or what I realized I already was?

What’s more, the verb strahlen in German means to shine brighly, to radiate, and, when ascribed to a person, to beam. I am reminded of that whenever I meet someone who has stepped into their vocation and embodies their true self – something I’m working to move ever closer to.

These kinds of ruminations take courage to share, as they may seem self-absorbed or creating a story in hindsight. But first, better to author your own story and create meaning in your life. And second, more and more I find that one of the artist’s (and the teaching artist’s) jobs is to look within and learn about who they are so they can nurture it and bring it to bear in their work, and so may inspire others to do the same.

Here’s something that I wrote last year when I was in the middle of an exploration that I hope to pick up soon, and the above memory was on my mind: Notes for the current and future expeditions.

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