Everywhere I look, things are changing. The world is unraveling along cultural, spiritual, and ideological lines.
The old narratives no longer hold the power they once had, leaving many of us with an unsettling feeling of
being between eras, watching the world we knew disappear even as we anxiously await the birth of a new one.
This feeling has led me to go to the places where I believed culture and tradition hadn't yet been flattened by
our modern monoculture, places where I could tap into the wellspring of our collective heritage…
To seek, to witness, to ask, to learn.
Daba shamans open the road for the recently departed. Yunnan Province, China.
But the more I've traveled, the more I've come to see that this feeling is everywhere and inescapable. The same tide that drew me to searching is now washing over every culture and community on earth, including the places I went looking for answers.
What are we to do?
A young lama on his phone. Garze Tibetan Autonomous Region.
This feeling, and this question is not new; this much I’ve learned in my travels.
Many ancient cultures were also perched on the threshold between worlds, and they left evidence of their thoughts, feelings, and actions in their stories… These stories, real or imagined, belong to the vast constellation of human memory.
They are an inexhaustible well we can draw from in times of trouble.
A man basks in the quiet before the sacred Rom dance. Ambrym Island, Vanuatu.
We are in the midst of a great change. The scale of destruction is unlike anything experienced before in our history, it’s true. But I believe the old stories can show us how to move through great changes instead of being destroyed by it. To me, old stories are like the soft forest floor from which new stories grow out of and draw their inspiration from. I believe meaning is eternal, outlasting the forms that once held it, and that it’s now up to us to find meaning a new home.
That is why I tell these stories.
A new sun greets the ruins of an old fortress. High Atlas, Morocco.