Finding Gravity
Creating Stories of Hope
Double-Exposure. Milan & Lisbon [35mm Film Photos]
Parque Florestal de Monsanto 2020 / Milano Piazza Duomo 2009
These past couple of months I’ve been unable to write. I tried to come up with a topic, and mostly overthought my inspiration away. At first the words just did not come to me at all, I would set myself to turn inward, just to find myself floating in a zero gravity space, mind and heart in a soundless darkness.
After a while – as suddenly a black hole had materialised in space – all my thoughts and words started to gravitate over my head in a space storm of untenable anxiety, resentment and pain.
I tried to capture this chaos, and write it down.
In fact, I tried to journal about it and be specific, I tried to put it in a poem and be abstract, in a children’s story as a metaphor, even in an image. Something, between my head, the thoughts gravitating over it, and the page, seemed to be interrupted.
Alto de Santo Amaro Lisboa 2020 / Milano 2009
II could not feel the relief that usually comes when I release something onto the page.
I still didn’t know where I was going. I could not find the bridge that would lead me from where I was to where I wanted to be. And I found myself asking: What is it that I really want to say that is going to be of value for anyone? That is going to have a purpose?
It occurred to me that if I simply tried to describe it, maybe someone would feel understood — as sometimes people have told me that they found bits of themselves in what I’ve written in the past.
And if I could not be inspiring, I wanted at least to be hopeful. And I really could not find any hope within me. It did not feel right. In a world where we are constantly bombarded by content of all kinds, what sense does it make to put out more personal (and privileged) pain, more resentment, more anxiety, without shape or a conclusion or hope?
Lisbon On Film Opening at Ler Devagar (LX Factory), Lisbon 2020 / Train Station, Milano 2009
Then last week I found myself having a conversation about hope (which you can read as the intro of the second issue of A Collective Journal). I read it aloud many times, and in reading it again and again, I finally understood something.
Hope (and purpose) is not something we find. Hope is rather something we create.
Ajuda Lisboa 2020 / Milano 2009
Some may build it upon a religious or spiritual belief, on magic, even on ourselves. And yet hope requires so much more than belief... it requires us to let go of the past and make space for the future.
To let go of the past and the stories we tell ourselves is not easy. I myself can't fully grasp what letting go truly means or how to do it. I know by personal experience that the past can be a drought that makes the soil sterile. We think nothing will ever grow on it again.
And yet the soil, just like our souls, can be fertile again.
Ajuda Lisboa 2020 / Milano 2009
To learn how to bring abundance back after a drought, we have to be creative and cultivate our imagination. Anxiety and expectations are that paralysing zero gravity, and they are also the black hole, a force of chaos that swallows all our thoughts and does not allow them to grow and connect.
In this metaphor, hope is the sun, the point of reference that allows us to decide where we want to go, the energy that will make our deserted land flourish. To choose to hope, to see the light, to believe the earth will flourish again is the first step toward creating the future we want.
The present is where hope lives, where we work to make the soil fertile.
Parque Florestal de Monsanto Lisboa 2020 / Milano 2009
And this work requires awareness, we have to know exactly where we stand. But first of all we have to take responsibility for our future. We have to be strong and keep the black hole of expectation and fear at bay.
We don’t have to reverse the drought in one day. We just have to start by finding gravity. We start by being aware, and upon this awareness and belief that we are responsible for our future, we then build hope to light up the path ahead.
There is always a point in the process of writing a piece where I get the first realisation: we create hope as we imagine new narratives for our future.
And there is also always a point, usually later on — when I am tired of working on something and I just want to release it — where I get the second realisation, the most important one.
Finding gravity, working on being aware and fostering our imagination, creating hope to finally reverse the drought and flourish… we don’t do all this on our own.
The sun is vital for an abundant land, but without water nothing will ever grow on it. Water, in this now never-ending metaphor, is the conversation.
Water is what nourishes our minds and feeds them creativity. We are water for others, as others are for us. To have conversations, to make connections and expand our souls, to love, to find comfort in others is what will really help us write our stories of hope.
Artworks by Doofan Kwaghhool (www.doofankarts.com), made during her residency at Hangar, Lisbon 2020 / Trees Milan 2009
When we are floating in the zero-gravity soundless darkness of our ego we can’t see anyone else, we are alone, the pain and the confusion are all there is. But if we manage to ground ourselves and appreciate our responsibility in shaping our landscapes, we can finally see all the beautiful people around us.
What really got me down and allowed me to reconnect with my thoughts and then articulate them into words, these words, was that conversation.
About the Water
Thanks to Alina, Chrischa and David for their important contribution to this text and for being a constant source of inspiration.
I would also like to thank Doofan (whose artworks ended up being part of this), a talented artist and incredible woman met through a friend during her residency at Hangar (Lisbon). Some people are able to give us so much in such a short time and I am grateful I had the opportunity to know a bit about her story. More at www.doofankarts.com.
“Racconta (te stesso), non una storia qualunque” — Tell about yourself not about any story. As it turns out a campaign for a funeral house.
About the Images
The images are scans of a Fuji 200 ISO expired film, shot last March in between Monsanto Park and the collective film photography exhibition at Ler Devagar — where I showcased my recent black&white project “History of Water”.
Completely by accident, they turned into dreamy, and at times disorienting, double-exposures: as it turned out the film had been used before and most of the previous shots were taken in Milan around 2009.
They seemed to be the perfect metaphor of how we can turn our narrative, quite literally, upside down, creating new, fantastic stories about ourselves and our future.
The pictures were taken with a compact automatic camera Nikon 3000 Zoom AF.
More content on the topic
Alina (AMAVI Coaching) and Chrischa (The Sensual Journal ) have written two articles that seem very much complementary to what I am talking about here, and that will give you insights on how we can foster our creativity and imagination to strengthen our minds, build hope, and a better future for all of us.
Poetry & Art as tools for healing. Me, creative? Never... by Chrischa Oswald
The power of creative thinking by Alina Mavis