Finding Beauty in a Broken World

“Finding beauty in a broken world is creating beauty in the world we find.” - Terry Tempest Williams

And with the flipping of the page, or rather, the tapping of the screen (thank you ultralight ebook!), Mark and I have officially left Southern California and entered a new leg of our journey in Northern California! We have made over 1,000 miles so far on our journey north, but these miles have made so much more of us. To walk on foot is to give respect to the vastness of this world, how much more there is beyond us, beyond thought, lying in the beauty of cyclical rhythm and a contentment to be at peace with pace. A river never rushes, it goes precisely the pace it means to. We all grow at precisely the pace we are intended to. The world at the start of this journey felt too big until I realized I was thinking too small.

The first and last rule of day is light. Rise and rest, not a duality or separateness, but a synchronicity and dependency. We are a species of social dependency living in a culture of independency. We wait for the sun to rise, thanking the morning light and the coming again of warmth. We watch as the sun sets beneath the cover of clouds, and huddle beneath our own cover of down, thanking the stars and moon for the comfort of rest. The first and last rule of mosaic is light. Southern California is a mosaic. Sands, stone, soils, snow, shadow, and sun. All the shifting shapes and ways we can be. Not a brokenness or separateness coming together, but a scene where all color, texture, song, sound, and being rely upon one another to create the whole.

For a long time before the trail, I was looking for that thing, that one thing that might save me, fix me, make me whole again. I felt broken. To break is to create separations, to separate into pieces by strain, shock, stress, or blows. I break when I create separations between myself and others, myself and nature, myself and myself. I have a personal life, a professional life, a social life, an “on-trail” life, an “off-trail” life. Which one is the real life, the true life? Are any of them real or true if they are only pieces to a whole? I believe we are broken because we try to keep ourselves separate, our lives separate. I think we think it will keep us safe, add more certainty, tell us when to share and how much and with whom. It prevents us from being too vulnerable, exposed, seen.

Mosaic is a form of creating beauty from brokenness, or separateness. It is dependent upon the varying textures and edges to create plays of light and catch the eye. It is the art of integration. The coming together of individual pieces knowing they were never separate, but are tied to the swirl of the whole.

The trail is a mosaic, each day picking up new tessera of self, other, spirit, and shape. Life is a mosaic. We may walk similar paths, but the breaking, the putting back together, the shattering, the rearranging, the how we move is where our story lies. Our story lies in the glue that binds, that connects, that reaches out toward pieces and gives them an arc and story amidst the larger fabric. The story of my life, the binding of my mosaic, is spirit.

The mosaic of my spirit, of spirit itself, is what gives meaning to my life. These pieces by themselves are beautiful, but lackluster. Together, combined, the light shining through reveals a vitality. If work is love made visible, I am in the work of spirit. Spirit as the embodied connection to self and other. It is the tools to reconnect when we have become lost, the tools to nourish and strengthen, and the tools to connect more deeply and meaningfully with other spirits of the world. The physical manifestation of spirit being well-being, and the emotional being contentment, connection, openness to the spectrum of granularity. It is freudenfreude with life itself. Here is my mosaic of spirit.

M - Movement: Moving my body in ways that feels good and lights me up. Dancing in public when I hear a beat that makes my feet and body want to move. Running through forests and across ridgelines. Testing my balance and connecting breath and the slowness of my own respirations in yoga. Finding flow in the puzzle of a rock wall. Sitting in stillness by a lapping tide or a rocky river.

O - Outside: “When I am among the trees…” there is no lesson on life found in books or lectures or science that cannot first be answered by living time in the world around us.

S - Switchbacks and Summits: Those things that make life smoother, more soothing or easeful amidst challenge, and the challenges and sights you want to see and choose that are meaningful to you. For me this is scents, especially sage, lavender, rosemary, pine, coffee, fresh baked bread and cookies, Mark’s tres nuit cologne, and my grandmother’s red door perfume. It is story, getting found in imaginative worlds, fantasies, and the telling of our souls in poetry, narrative, and research. It is in song, the making of songs and the singing of them. The listening to the symphonies of birds each opening and evening.

A - Art: Poetry, song, painting, prose, podcast. The tangible manifestation of the process of creativity. Creativity itself. Making what is inside visible.

I - Introspection: Reflecting and creating mirrors and pools. The tide pools of understanding becoming oceans of openness, creation, and connection.

C - Community and Connection: We are a species of dependency living in a culture of independency. I need my family, my friends, you, in my life. On trail it is always apparent. We are meant to live for and with one another, not meant to go it alone. To gather, to cook, to play, to cheer, to console, to share. We are a mosaic of communities.

What is the mosaic of your life? How do you put it together?