In 1944 my grandmother, Atsa Louise Sørensen, set out from a small village named Arsuk and travelled up the western coast of Greenland to Aasiaat where she was to enter boarding school. That was the beginning of a story, a series of connected events, of which this is just another moment. Had my grandmother not travelled from Arsuk to Aasiaat and onwards you would not be reading these words, thinking these thoughts, pausing at this full stop. Your day wouldn't have started like it did and it wouldn't end as it does.
In hindsight it looks incredible, almost impossible, but so is the world. So utterly improbable that one is tempted to regard it all as mere chance. The random collision of bodies. And yet flowers and lives alike unfold in patterns. Patterns which connect your thoughts and mine, which connect the journey of an old Inuk with your very own story.
There is a deep connection between the way a flower grows and healthy and flourishing lives. Our only true guide to making sincere choices in life is that silent blossoming. It reveals itself as that which suggests itself in the moment, which doesn't take a lot of effort and which feels like it just fits the pattern or movement we are in. Which fits the condition of wholeness. The beauty inherent in what we like to call nature is a principle we have been given for sound living, choosing, navigating, creating.
But there is also a difference between patterns and harmony. Patterns indicate repetition and when movement becomes habitual, lazy, or neurotic, it is often destructive. Destructive patterns seem to imply a high level of self-reflection on behalf of that which repeats. Harmony, on the other hand, doesn't really require self-reflection as much as it requires unfolding in communion with the surroundings of that which repeats. This movement in concordance with the surroundings gives the pattern more rhythm. It becomes beautiful in many more dimensions.
Emergence is what happens when patterns come together and fall into place. What triggers this falling into place? How did you arrive at these words? Where will you go next? Somewhere in the heavens an old Inuk is sitting chuckling away at the humour of it all. On a quiet day I can hear her laughter.
PatternWhichConnects is a domain of Jeppe Dyrendom Graugaard. It is now largely kept as an archive. If you’d like to keep up to date with my current doings, visit refiguring.net. All content is licensed under creative commons by-nc-nd, if you reference or re-use anything from the site, please attribute it appropriately. If you have comments, suggestions, or just want to say hello, send me an email.
