I have been traveling again. This time to New Zealand. As inspiring as traveling is, especially to far off places, traveling is complicated, can be tiring and frequently is expensive. Still, I think traveling is well worth the effort and, for me, is more about self discovery then merely the discovery of some scenic location or exotic points of interest.
One of my great joys is talking to people from other parts of the world. Listening to their stories and seeing how their lives are different, and sometimes the same as mine, is so illuminating.
And I particularly love meeting artists and comparing notes on creating. After more then four years of corresponding with her, I got the opportunity to meet Dale, a found art artist who lives in New Zealand. Her love of nature as well as her fondness for found objects was so familiar and affirming. We talked for hours as her enthusiasm was infectious.
Here she is proudly showing off a delicate bat skeleton that was so beautiful but unlikely to make it into one of her pieces as it’s so fragile. It’s another life lesson about how fragile life is and how beauty can be found almost anywhere.