Please join Synkroniciti in welcoming back Canadian poet and photographer Katharine Weinmann. Carl Jung recognized travel as a powerful tool for self discovery and individuation. Our interaction with unfamiliar parts of the outside world helps us hone who we are and often opens our eyes to things we didn’t know about ourselves, as well as confirming things we suspected. Katharine’s poem “Ammonite Answers,” paired with her photo of the Moroccan mesa that inspired it, explores this rich connection.
“I’ve long learned that travelling is not an escape./ That I carry myself and my baggage to every destination./ That despite being proficient at packing light—a month in a carry-on—/ the more I open to what is in front of me, to its resonance/ and reflection, the heavier it can feel. Like ammonite’s compressed/ weight and glow, tempered by time./ It’s why I journey. To excavate, polish, and see myself/ mirrored in what is both foreign and familiar.”
Katharine dares us to be vulnerable and make a connection with unfamiliar landscapes, to remain teachable when so much of Western civilization prides itself on being dominant and self-centered. If we dare to look in the mirror and work on ourselves, we can find so much more strength, kindness and joy in our lives.
Read “Ammonite Answers” in Synkroniciti’s “Identity” issue, available here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
An intrepid traveller, Katharine Weinmann writes award-winning poetry, walks long distances, sees beauty in life’s imperfections and photographs its shimmer. She blogs at A Wabi Sabi Life and lives with her husband and their dog, Walker, on the Canadian prairies.