New Places

We are all searching for new places. New places to inspire us. New places that take us away from the sameness that can bind our lives. Places that may not always be physical. We humans have the capacity to explore, to search, to create - to change the place where we find ourselves. Whether that is by changing the physical, social, psychological or spiritual world in which our souls inhabit. Other life forms on this earth probably don't share such a capacity for initiating change in the way that we can perceive - or at least not on our 'immediate' timescale. When did you last see the trees in a local park get up and walk down to the local pub to have a chat? Or the stones in a road get up and decide they have had enough of being driven over by cars? Our culture is saturated with the expectations that we can change our lives, to better it, to move to a higher level of satisfaction, awareness, and fulfillment.

I see this in myself. I often feel un-stimulated and often need some creative energy to lift me out of a state of complacency or frustration at nothing happening in my life (when actually so much is happening - it is just I get numbed by routines). I have talked before about all the things that I would like to do and all I can do is chip away a them bit by bit, little by little.

A few weeks ago I was watching Chris Puleston and his drum circle in Hitchin and it was just one of those memorable occasions when you get captivated by colour, sound and energy. It was a new place for me. A place to experience the unknown, the unexpected, the senses and intense creativity. But then likewise my blog entry Waterfall in the Trees was an equivalent experience. Both were very different, yet similar and unexpected. From both experiences I came away wanting to do something. For one it was to write a poem, for the other it was to make my own shirts!

I think I like to be in new places of creativity. It could be at a music concert, it could be at an art gallery, it could be in a field, it could be in a cafe. A cafe? A field? Cafes or some other eating places are great places to just sit, think, draw, write or observe. I can find them hugely creative places, depending on the circumstances that is. You are sort of isolated in your own little world of your own table and coffee cup but yet surrounded by a continually changing environment of people and sound that isn't usually intrusive (unless you get someone joining you at your table!).

Fields, or indeed almost any outdoor more nauturalised areas, are full of the creative energy of Creation. That is why I enjoy walking and cycling so much. Every field, hedgerow, tree, ditch, overgrown corner, bridleway, fence post or woodland is a place of constant inspiration and a place to watch and observe, to touch and smell, to listen and think, to imagine and create. Despite the fact that a high percentage of the environment around me is man-made or man-managed, I know that the creative force of nature takes hold of any place, even if it be the most microscopic green algae on a tree or an ant crossing a road.

Next week I am going to the Resurgence Readers Camp and looking forward to being in a new place. A place of meeting new people, sharing new ideas, experiencing new food, doing new things and looking for new ways to view the world. Sometimes stepping out into the new can be hard, sometimes it is easy - I've talked about adventure and passion in a recent blog. I am little bit apprehensive but I am looking forward to being amongst some 'alternative' creative people for once.