100 Day Project - Day One

So many metaphors for a life: a journey, a tapestry, a garden, a roller-coaster ride, a painting, a jigsaw puzzle, or even (if you are Forrest Gump) a box of chocolates, to name but a few I can relate to. For me, most of the best offer something that’s consciously created and actively embarked upon; something that’s emergent, something that evolves, and something that holds at least a few surprises.

I’ve always found that spirals, journeys, mosaics, and collages work well for me.

Since my teens I’ve embraced spirals as a metaphor for time. Time that embodies the past, present and future all at once, multi-dimensional, and can be explored in several directions through mindful presence, dreaming and reflection. Time that allows us to experience the echo of a thing; an experience, a lesson, a person. An echo. Repetition, not the original but sometimes so loudly heard or keenly experienced that it can even feel like we are moving through the same terrain, although we never are. We never truly travel through the same place twice – either because we’re viewing it from a fractionally different perspective in time, or we are different since we were last there, or both. And spirals, because in my own experience there’s nothing perfectly linear about anything long-term we do that's worth doing, especially life – even if it has a clear beginning and end.

Spirals of course are also a version of pervasive organic fractals – an expanding and evolving symmetry. Beautiful!

Journeys, although sometimes they can feel like a cliché, are the ultimate metaphor for someone who is at an archetypal level, first & foremost, an explorer. I am.

Mosaics and collages? I find it appealing that something ultimately meaningful can emerge from pieces of broken, torn and sometimes even discarded bits. Sometimes the appeal lies in the similarities, sometimes in juxtapositions, sometimes in the pieces themselves, sometimes in the spaces between. They can contain contradictions, create cohesion, be simple or complex but there’s no doubt they were made, piece by piece. They emerge, they evolve and while there’s interest and texture in the close-up view – where one has to work to create them – it’s only really when we step back that their full beauty and significance can be seen. For me, it’s a profound creative process.

And all of this? Why the musing? It’s the impulse and inspiration behind my 100DayProject. As sustained creative endeavours go, for me, it’s a long one. So, I’m approaching it like life – as a journey, a mosaic, a collage. Sometimes I’ll be collecting materials, sometimes I’ll have my nose pressed up to the surface as I place the pieces, sometimes I’ll step back and have a look at the whole. Always, I’ll be dancing around that spiral.