For years I have dreamed of having a small shop the who’s name would be Kaleidoscope. It would a shop that sold the things I love (herbal soaps, books, wind chimes, great coffee mugs, and anything else, captured my fancy. A pipe dream but a pleasant one.
This blog and its title gained a bit more life when I read Kaleidoscope: Ideas + Projects to Spark Your Creativity by Suzanne Simanaitis. At the start of her book she discusses how the books title came to be. In doing so she talks about the meaning of the word kaleidoscope and she notes that it translates from “the original Greek as ‘beautiful form’ and is defined as a ‘series of changing phases.’”
She goes on to talk about how well Kaleidoscope fits a book about art and zines. She comments that a zine will change over its lifespan as both its creator and audiences develop new skills and interests and these changes are reflected in the published pages. For her the operative word here is reflected as kaleidoscopes create ever changing and fluid patterns as mirrors create reflections from a constant set of components (the varied colored and shaped bits).
It occurred to me that the kaleidoscope is an excellent metaphor for my approach to life. To those on the outside, it might seem that my activities and interests are ever shifting and even lack consistence. I am one of those people who find a never ending stream of things fascinating and often wish that I could live a thousand lifetimes just so I would have a chance to explore more interests.
While fluid the patterns of my life are not random. A deeper look reveals that, like the patterns of a kaleidoscope, the patterns of my life may shift but the component parts that provide the foundation are quite consistent is it their expression that moves through phases.
The consistent components that meld into the patterns of my life include: DIY spirituality; a love of and reverence for the natural world and its cycles and seasons; food as a source of food fuel for the soul, relationships, and community as well as the body; the search for community and a sense of home; a quest for knowledge and new experiences; a belief in the value of all people; a deep desire to help make the world a better place; and a celebration of sensory experiences and beauty in all its many forms. I will be elaborating on each of these in the coming days but I should point out now that they are by no means discrete categories. This fact will quickly become evident.
Some of the ways these components currently manifest in my life are: nature photography and exploring the Northwest Indiana and Southwest Michigan; my efforts to live a simpler and more sustainable life; involvement in the local and ethicurian food movements; teaching; Goddess spirituality and Unitarian Universalism.
That will do it for the introductory information and I’ll get down to more substantive posts tomorrow. Until then . . .
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