Where Do You Feel Hopeful?

Weekly wisdom to level up your creative life in 3 minutes, for free.

A SHORT STORY

Fifteen years ago, I spent a year researching shamanic traditions in Mongolia. I lived with various tribes including the Tsaatan people, who have lived amongst reindeer at the edge of Siberia for over four thousand years.

To get to their home, we had to drive for two days with no sign of a road, and then travel on horseback for another two days. After living with them for a little under a week, we were on our way home and driving through the night when our car hit a rock and the gear shaft was torn in two.

We were in the middle of nowhere with no sign of water, in the deep of night, and it was bitterly cold.

In the Mongolian winter, you can most certainly freeze without fire to warm you in the middle of the night.

Luckily, in the distance we saw the faint light of a nomad family’s home. We approached them and requested to stay in their small ger (yurt). Even though we were strangers, they offered us their own bed, fed us food, and prepared tea.

It is said in Mongolia, that if a stranger turns up at your tent, you will slaughter the last goat that provides the only milk for your children to feast your guest.

One never knows when you will be that stranger, turning up in the night, cold and hungry, thirsty and in need of shelter.

As I watched that Mongolian family pour me a cup of tea, I thought to myself, these are the moments that allow us all to hope.

Where do you feel hopeful right now? How can you go about your day allowing that to guide and sustain you?

A CREATIVE TOOL

Over the past ten years, I have always turned to the website Nowness for inspiration.

So, it was with absolute delight this week that I came upon a film directed by the photographer, Robert LeBlanc, who I got to interview a few months ago at HUG. The film is beautiful and Nowness is an incredible tool for inspiration.

A PIECE OF ART

“In the chemo room, I wear mittens made of ice so I don’t lose my fingernails. But I took a risk today to write this down.” by Andrea Gibson

originally published on Poets.org

Whenever I spend the day crying,
my friends tell me I look high. Good grief,

they finally understand me.
Even when the arena is empty, I thank god

for the shots I miss. If you ever catch me
only thanking god for the shots I make,

remind me I’m not thanking god. Remind me
all my prayers were answered

the moment I started praying
for what I already have.

Jenny says when people ask if she’s out of the woods,
she tells them she’ll never be out of the woods,

says there is something lovely about the woods.
I know how to build a survival shelter

from fallen tree branches, packed mud,
and pulled moss. I could survive forever

on death alone. Wasn’t it death that taught me
to stop measuring my lifespan by length,

but by width? Do you know how many beautiful things
can be seen in a single second? How you can blow up

a second like a balloon and fit infinity inside of it?
I’m infinite, I know, but I still have a measly wrinkle

collection compared to my end goal. I would love
to be a before picture, I think, as I look in the mirror

and mistake my head for the moon. My dark
thoughts are almost always 238,856 miles away

from me believing them. I love this life,
I whisper into my doctor’s stethoscope

so she can hear my heart. My heart, an heirloom
I didn’t inherit until I thought I could die.

Why did I go so long believing I owed the world
my disappointment? Why did I want to take

the world by storm when I could have taken it
by sunshine, by rosewater, by the cactus flowers

on the side of the road where I broke down?
I’m not about to waste more time

spinning stories about how much time
I’m owed, but there is a man

who is usually here, who isn’t today.
I don’t know if he’s still alive. I just know

his wife was made of so much hope
she looked like a firework above his chair.

Will the afterlife be harder if I remember
the people I love, or forget them?

Either way, please let me remember.

Grateful,

Michael