Today I end this journey back into the past. It has been very enlightening for me to revisit some of the places I have been to and deepen my connections to them, but I feel moved to put an end to this and move forward into something new before the 365 days end on this project. Tomorrow is a new day and with it I will start a new project.
Wishing you all a very smooth ride into the new year and all the hidden possibilities it may bring.
With love from Germany!! xoxo
One of the most stark truths about the future is that it remains unknown until the moment when it happens. We project, we plan, we dream, we wish, and almost always we are surprised by what unfolds. If it is the past that holds sway on our emotions, then it is the future that triggers our imagination and creativity, and the now is the bridge we build to take us into the great unknown.
A new year unfolds, and so do many contemplations in my mind …
Where the seconds melt into minutes, and the minutes into hours, where conversations flow, where bonds are made, where friendships and money are made and lost… the village card game.
What is it that makes us humans want to idolize someone and hold them high, look up to them, attribute super powers to them and be completely subjective about the whole affair? We do it with sports teams, with movie stars, with religious leaders and with politicians. Or do we sometimes do it from a sense of obligation or pier pressure?
The Yao, one of the 54 recognized ethnic minorities in China, number over 2 million and retain today many of their original traditions. Bright colors and silver adorn them and mountains are their preferred settling places. They form part of the colorful mosaic that China is.
No one is allowed to see her hair until she marries, each Yao woman can carry around her head up 1.9 meters of hair wrapped around like a crown. If a young man happens to catch sight of a girl’s hair, then he must invite her to live with his parents as a bride for 3 whole years. Another of our wonderfully colorful human traditions and another chapter in the mystery of hair.
Magical karst hills stand like guards along the banks of the Li Jiang in Guilin, impressive, haunting and dream inducing. Some places on our planet can take your breath away, and this is one of them.
Year after year, stitching stories together, of people destined to live together, in a small village in far away China.
With every new year, we dream of new possibilities, we swear to do better, we feel confident that we we tackle more impossibilities and we feel armed with the promise of a new mystery box that awaits our discovery…
Thinking of those that carry the weight of the world on their backs today…