Old friends and Inspiration

It is a good idea to, every once in a while, take stock of all the things we have in our lives. Perhaps not following the prevalent focus of “letting go” as much as to discover old friends and to get inspired. To get ideas as to what to do next; which adventure to embark upon. To see lines and shapes emerge… To see symbols ~ both ancient and new ~ surface on almost forgotten materials.
To find that each stone, each bead, every tidbit of leather, metal, rock, and even plastic seems to be an ‘artifact’ in its own right.

Old friends that I discovered long ago, and that since then have slept; neatly stacked in their boxes. Put up in drawers, where they we quietly whispering to their neighbors, until finally everything became quiet.

Until we decide to see what is there…
To open the drawers and boxes, and to be surprised about what is there to find. To listen to each and every item that is waking up; some that are shrieking, while others just slowly seem to open their eyes and look back at us with a mild sense of accusation that we have left them alone for so long.

Similarly, looking at old pictures can bring us back to a realization about something we ~ at one point in time ~ we truly enjoyed doing. Something that gave us great satisfaction or fulfillment; and then somehow we stopped doing it. We may have felt we should do other things first; perhaps even had a sense of duty to focus on different things as the circumstances in our lives changed.
And then we come upon these pictures and we find that whatever it was that gave us so much pleasure at that distant past, is worth revisiting.

It is a good thing to get back in touch with old friends ~ be it people, activities, tools, or even materials ~ and let ourselves be inspired to pick up where at one time we have left off. To let new ideas bubble up and come to light. To start building on old foundations. To take a next step on a path that may have been temporarily overgrown…
To let ancient whispers guide us to new realizations.

Life is not all about letting go and moving on; saying “been there, done that” might be true, yet should not be an indication that we should stop doing whatever it is we were doing altogether. As sometimes the greatest inspiration can come from revisiting that which we have known and loved and appreciated for a very long time already.