Every person is a world :-)

Every person is a world / what do you see?

The essential point of the ONE postcard project is to celebrate exactly this: that each of us in our own way are a unique world of our own.... a complex and fascinating world of personal history and experience mixed with hopes and dreams for the future, and all orbiting in and around the multiple other worlds surrounding us of our friends, family, colleagues, strangers we pass on the street or sit next to on the bus or have a nose-jammed-into-armpit situation with on the tube!

This was the absolute joy of the week in Buenos Aires... crossing orbital paths with so many new worlds and getting to know a little about the people inhabiting them through shared moments and the invitation to share a little of their story on the three-point postcard.  Throughout our various excursions I kept thinking how these types of street-level art projects are really most brilliant in being tools to initiate contact between strangers giving an un-common space to deepen connections through creative play.  No wonder each experience, each person known, left us bouncing with energy and joyous grins ear-to-ear.  We certainly are a damn fascinating lot we human-folk. :-) 

Thinking back/ forward to the recent postcard-post to my cousin Jo about the weavers and story-weavers, and the power of story as a healing art that we need to respect, this quote from Clarissa Pinkola Estés seems a particularly apt reminder to me, and anyone else working with the personal stories of other folk as a form of 'material', to be mindful and respectful of the privacy and ownership of the story-bearer.  I have been very moved by the depth and detail of some of the personal stories that I have been had the honour to hear, and I certainly mean to be respectful to the privacy of these new friends, and I hope that I am being respectful in my handling so far):

Gaining explicit permission to tell another’s tale and the proper crediting of that tale, if permission to it is given, is absolutely essential, for it maintains the genealogical umbilicus; we are one end, the life-giving placenta on the other.  It is a sign of respect, and one might say, of befitting manners.... to ask and receive permission, to not take work that has not been given freely, to respect the work of others, for their work and their lives together make the work they give out.  A story is not just a story.  In its most innate and proper sense, it is someone’s life.  It is the numen of their life and their first-hand familiarity with the stories they carry that makes the story “medicine”.

pp.469, Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run with Wolves, Contacting the Power of the Wild Woman, Rider 1992

So indeed, what a privilege and pleasure to be on the receiving end of so many stories and snippets of dreams from such a fascinating bunch of characters (I reckon Dad would have loved this project, seeing as he particularly loved meeintg new and unusual characters - I reckon he must be alongside me in these encounters laughing or listening along as we go)

... as Daniela said so so often on parting from a new friends... 

"que personaje!!"  

So, to all you locos, characters and personajes out there, 

big hugs and big love...

and enjoy one another's worlds

:-)