Travel writing and photography as food for thought and fuel for wanderlust.
Dancing Lessons From God
I am a passionate traveler. Yet, in times like these, in a world where a record number of 45 million people (according to the UN) are refugees, homeless, derooted against their will, I cannot help but question this passion of mine. Is it not only sheer luxury, but decadent even? Is it purely cynical to venture into other cultures, taking photos and souvenirs, while in the safe haven called “home” people of different cultures are increasingly discriminated, subjected to hate crimes in word and deed by the rise of right-wing demagogues and their blinded voters?
Or is it, paradoxically, the more important to travel in times like these? For nothing, to quote Mark Twain, shatters our prejudices and preconceptions more than visiting foreign countries, to remember that the humanity we share is more important than the mores and mentalities that divide, or distinguish us.
Consequently, I travel. I travel in the most ethical way I can imagine, I travel to learn and grow, to tell and share the lessons, inspire others to pursue their own studies. Hence I created the wanderwarbler website, please indulge – and reflect – and comment.
To travel makes us vulnerable as persons: we challenge our own rites and traditions, we are challenged by the strains and ordeals of travel, of new or indecipherable languages, of possibly dangerous situations, or just tedious waiting for trains, buses or boats that might or might not come. “To travel” the Edwardian writer, gardener, and traveler Vita Sackville-West said, “is the most private act.”
By profession I am a dancer. To visit a new country to me means immersing myself in the musical traditions. I understand music as the grammar of a culture. It reflects not only the landscape, like the high pitched yodeling that is found in the Alpine regions, but also the inner landscape of the people: like the ornamented music of Iran reveals the convoluted gestures and spiraled philosophies of the Persian culture.
Where ever I go I look for people to dance with. Kurt Vonnegut called the chance encounters between people on the road “Dancing Lessons from God.” I take this quite literally.
Another motivation to travel was the book “The conference of the Birds” by the 12th century poet Farid Udin Attar. In this old Sufi-tale, the birds, under the guidance of the hoopoe, have to set out on a most stressful journey to find their god, the mysterious, fabulous Simorgh. While most of the birds don’t gather the inner strength to undergo the strains of travel and give up early or even before starting the trip, the thirty birds that make the journey to the end come to realize that Simorgh is only a pun, it means 30 birds, just as GOD simply means to work towards becoming one’s best self – and apparently to travel is the way to go. I have taken Attar’s confernce quite literally as well. I have become a birder. Please enjoy my bird photo gallery that I plan to keep expending over the years. Way to go!
Sabine Hasicka, the wanderwarbler