Movements

TRANSPORTATION

I gained a lot of respect for the art of movement in Ghana. There I realized just because you get on a bus, doesn’t mean you will go anywhere and just because you find a seat, doesn’t mean you will keep it to yourself. I was also humbled by how many things must gracefully align in order to stay alive while in movement.

For my one day trip to Nagasaki I moved myself in various ways. I rode a bike, I took a ferry, I got on a bus, I walked, I got on some cable cars, then I took a different ferry, and then ran I few miles in the dark. I think people take transportation for granted, as a thing that happens in-between real things. But once you start to think of it as a real thing in itself, it becomes truly amazing. I mean, there are so many ways of moving that I did not even touch: motorcycle, swimming, helicopter, sailboat, parachute, rollerblades….and as my friend pointed out in Japan, the electric unicycle. “Traveling” seems to get overshadowed by the act of being somewhere new. And while I felt the need to go somewhere newer and shake off some dust, I was looking forward to the act of flinging myself forward in various ways. I decided I would attempt to get myself to Seoul, Korea.

The highlights of Korean transport were hitch hiking with some female monks in their sedan and being the only person on a cruise liner deck at night leaving Busan harbor. (Dance party ensued of course) I felt incredibly lucky to be moving in these ways. I was neither here nor there, and there is something liberating about slipping through those cracks in space.

MEDITATION

During my days as a Buddist monk in the ancient city of Gyeonju I came to understand a different type of movement – movement of the mind and soul.