Do you have a place that speaks to your soul?

Dear Friend

I wonder if you have ever spent time in a place that seemed to speak deeply to your soul?  It may be a place far away from home, or maybe somewhere held deep in childhood memory, or maybe somewhere near to you in both time and place? 

Over the past few years, I have spent many months living and working in Mongolia, a place of which I knew little before I went there, but which now feels deeply embedded in my own soul.  It was there that I felt as if I fully met myself, although, on my return this seemed to pose as many questions as it answered:

            What was it about this place, this culture, these people, that spoke to my soul?

How could I live from my soul once I had returned home?

Photo by Bolatbek Gabiden on Unsplash

Mongolia is a land that holds echoes of the pain of centuries of oppression, of not knowing its own identity, of being forced into a culture that was not its own.  First China and then Russia controlled this vast land-locked state, now fighting for its independence, technically autonomous but still bound by ties to the powerful neighbours that surround it and control its borders.  This land holds echoes too of a noble past, of a history that resonates back from ancient cliffs where dinosaurs roamed, from ruined monasteries where thousands of monks were slaughtered, from rolling steppes where nomads still roam and eagles soar, where herders struggle to hold on to a traditional way of life in the face of climate change.  This land holds echoes of freedom, freedom fought for and found in its wild open spaces, freedom lost by those who seek a ‘better’ life in the streets of the capital but find only poverty and failed dreams. 

On my visit last year, I spent time in the countryside far from the capital of Ulaanbaatar.  One evening, we worked alongside the herders to round up their flock of yak and drive them to the compound for the night.   As I stumbled over tussocks of grass, following the yak making their way home, clear snow falling on my face and the herders calling as they galloped off to round up the strays, I had a sense of being part of a world long gone from my own culture, a world where days are bounded by the light and the needs of your animals, far from the artificial lights of the city, a world where the seasons direct your days. 

Photo by Uchral Sanjaadorj on Unsplash

I remember thinking how I wanted to capture this time of sharing, for a short while, a life truly lived in the moment.  I wanted to remember the damp, the cold, the sense of working together for a shared goal, of reaching the compound where yak mothers and babies huddled closely for the night and then the simple ger where a small child played ‘peek a boo’ as children do the world over.  I wanted to remember this moment when I had to return to a world where speed counts, where multitasking is praised, where too many children feel unseen and unheard. 

I think it was all this that resonated with my soul.   The struggle to break free from a past controlled by other, stronger powers, twisting and turning to try and adapt to the world’s expectations.  The simplicity of a life lived without expectations, as the herders respond to the needs of their flocks in the changing seasons.   And, like Mongolia, a country rich in mineral deposits, a sense that my most precious resources were buried deep inside and needed guidance and help from those wiser than I to release that treasure and bring it to the surface.

All this has stayed with me since my return, fuelling my curiosity and my quest.  I continue to try and live simply, responding to need without expectation.  I continue to try to uncover the light, and the pain, buried deep within and to appreciate the richness found there.  I try to live in the rhythm of the seasons of my soul.  I seek out places and people that speak to my soul and, by sharing my quest, I try to give a voice to other soul seekers.

Together we can build a soul-filled world for the next generation regardless of culture or context. 

Will you join me?

Miranda