Yesterday Maya went through a portal. Who is Maya? What portal did she go through? and what does that have to do with me, you and the universe :-O ?
Well all of that will be explained but before we get there let me lay down some conceptual frameworks of how I view portals and their implications.
Firstly I invite you to think of this article as a thought exercise that has potential to open up possibilities, rather than a mathematical theory or factual account of life.
With that out of the way, let’s start with portals. When I say portals I mean both physical (Pathways, gates and doors) as well as non physical (ideas, thought processes, organising structures and beyond). I make this distinction because I believe that both the physical and mental spaces we inhabit co influence each other and this impacts the portals we are able to perceive and subsequently explore.
In observing this fractal pattern of portal recognition and exploration in the physical and non physical spaces, we are able to attune our discernment to what paths are worth exploring, healthy and fruitful. For example they way in which we explore the internet & decide which links to click on or which rooms to explore in a house party, can also be similar to how we explore sprawling streets, cities & so on… These explorations of our physical somatic spaces in return shapes our mental capacities and then feedbacks on each other recursively.
So what are the implications of this conceptual framework. Well we can look at the sum of our experiences as an exploration of various portals that have opened up in our lives & how we have chosen to pursue them. Whether in regards to relationships that have flourished due to joining a community, striking up a conversation in a public space or a career path that has opened up due to a variety of factors. This concept of elegant portal exploration can be easily digested on a personal level like knowing when to say yes more or say no … but it gets even more fascinating when we think of it on a macro level and our need to open up new portals for how we organise our socio-economic systems. More on that another time…
To ground these conceptual frameworks in how we can navigate life lets return back to Maya. But in order to get to Maya we must first understand who Wahid is. I promise we will get to Maya ;) So about 3 years plus ago Wahid sent a voice note to my phone from my friend Irina’s phone and that marked the start of our friendship. For those deeply experienced Portal divers you might also ask who is Irina (Happy Birthday Irina) & how did we met. Well if we opened up that portal we could go on ad infinitum, but I will spare you in order to preserve time. In short I often say to friends – people are portals of endless discovery, that open up more portals.
Like in the instance of Wahid who stroke up a playful conversation with Maya at Waterstone book store In Bloomsbury yesterday after she dropped some books on the floor. I don’t just think of Wahid as starting a conversation I think of him as providing a fertile ground for a portal to be opened up between him, Maya & the world. At this point you might be asking, considering it was Wahid who initiated the conversation why did I centre Maya in this story? Partly because I think the act of initiating is one thing but the act of exploring that initiation is neglected in most narratives and I would love to encourage others to view the people around them as potential portals to explore.
In the case of Maya her openness led to a playful impromptu poem creation between me Maya, Wahid, and Maya’s Friend Jojo in the Manga section of Watersones, then an exploration of our world views, politics and beyond.
We may not always be in a bookstore with folks open to playful conversations but I invite us all to view this article, our thoughts and the world around us as dormant Portals waiting to be awoken.
🍃 Some Invitations 🍃
