Landscapes

At the Gulliver Project you can travel to new latitudes and longitudes; through experiential adventure trips, or from flipping through the pages of “Everyman’s” explorations.  Share your adventures with us at workshops and events.  Or if you prefer, listen to Gulliver’s ever-relevant stories on a phone, PC, or iPod near you…

• Our view of… - click to view
  Our view of the world is determined by what we view.  We've all heard stories about how many words Eskimos have for snow, or the Bedouin nomads of North Africa have for sand… It's amazing how clever the human mind is at differentiating things in our immediate environment, things that look so "same" to outsiders…But the opposite is true, also…There are countless stories of the peoples of the Americas, Oceania, or Africa literally not seeing the ships of the European explorers right off their coasts, because their brains had no context to frame the object into… if that's the case, what is it that we don't see in our everyday lives?  Often we become so mesmerized – or enamored – by our own environment that we do not see the virtues (and sometimes vices) of "Others".  Sometimes all we have to do to enhance our vision is rub those snowflakes or sand grains out of our eyes.
• Rising above the…
  Rising above the struggle gives us clarity and appreciation.  From tall peaks, we can start to see purpose in everything.  Rivers flow to the sea, are swept up into the clouds, are dumped as snow onto the peak, then melt down into the rivers again… the grasslands fade into the jungle… cities fade into hamlets then farms then empty prairie… The higher the peak, the more aware we become of things that were there all along… but blocked by the obstacles in our life; obscured by the fact that maybe we weren't looking… We all spend time, at various stages of our lives, in Base Camp… or hanging off a ledge…or hunkered down waiting for a storm to pass… but when arriving at the peak, we're reminded of why we came… our head clears, our vision sharpens.  Our "problems" are still there – down below – but they're somehow insignificant at the moment. We see the horizon curve – and we know we're connected with everything.  "Home" becomes everywhere.
• Beauty is…
  Beauty is relative; Mystery is everywhere.  A patch of flat earth may bore a jet-setting city slicker, but it's heaven to a farmer.  The jungle may terrify desert dwellers – but it's a comfy home to the tribes secluded deep in its forests.  The tundra may seem stark and desolate to many, but to its residents, it's a playground, a hunting field, and a cornucopia of delights all rolled into one.  It's not surprising that so many of the Earth's peoples, in their own terms, refer to living in "God's Country."  But even the visitor can see the innate beauty of any landscape, if he just opens his eyes… the cycle of life and death and rebirth…the quiet before the storms… the darkness before the dawn…the incredible species of plants and animals thriving where it seems none could…even our cities, with their pulsing hearts and spirited peoples.  The more we peer into Pandora's Box – investigating the nooks and crannies of our great big, diverse Home – the more we become aware we're both observers and participants in a mysterious laboratory …or is it an incubator?
• The land is…
  The land is "alive" and changing – and so must we be.  Maybe it's just the media, or maybe it's our enhanced awareness, but it sure seems that the Earth's "activities" – earthquakes, volcanoes, floods, fires, and other unsettling shake-ups are mirroring our own changes in the shrinking world.  The ancients referred to Earth as Gaia, a living conscious body, where every tide, wind, and landscape were like our circulatory, respiratory, and other systems.  Pierre Tielhard de Chardin, the great Jesuit scientist of the 20th Century, wrote that "just as Earth once covered itself with a film of interdependent living organisms which we call the biosphere, so mankind's combined achievements are forming a global network of collective mind."   We're all connected, and the Earth is "family."  It's a great time in history to be checking out our kin-folk across the wide spectrum of humanity – and their many fascinating home-ports.
• The further we…
  The further we travel, the more we recognize our real home upon return.  Some, like Dorothy in Oz, just couldn't wait to get home.  Others, like Marco Polo or the great explorer Richard Burton, were often content to just keep on going.  But an interesting happens when we go far enough north, south, east, or west… we end up back where we started – but somehow it seems different. It's as if we were hypnotized before, just taking things for granted; but somehow, fording the world's rivers and scaling her mountains and crossing her jungles and exploring her enthralling cities sharpens our senses – we see the arbitrary nature of things; we notice the quirky little wrinkles in our own town or country or personal doormat, and think, "Hmmm. That's interesting – I wonder why I didn't notice it before…"  As the poet T. S. Eliot wrote, "We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."

What would you like to add?
By submitting questions to TGP, you give permission to TGP to post my question on the website or in their newsletter.

• Are You Curious About…
  Curious about which of our fascinating continents you want to check out next?  Try Accidental Enlightenment for an audacious tour-de-force of some really interesting places and peoples – many quite different than you might have been led to believe…Accompany us on an adventure tour –  chocked with "meaning" – for those who want to explore the earth’s contours beyond just the latitudes and longitudes…Inquire at The New Gullivers series for locating your own True North, trade winds, and anchors… Climb into the Crow's Nest for our regular newsletters and broadcasts…You can also hear about it on our Free CD.
  
  And don’t leave port without the appropriate clothing and gear to assist you on your journey.

• How has your… - click to view
  How has your physical environment created your "views?"  What might be right in front of you, that you don't see?
• If you could…
  If you could look through another pair of eyes, what might you see?
• Can you see…
  Can you see beauty and purpose in every terrain?
• Are any places…
  Are any places more or less "sacred" than any other – why/how?  What feeling do they evoke – are they important in/for your life?
• Of all the places…
  Of all the places in the world that you’ve learned about, which are you most attracted to, and which are you least attracted to? Why – is it the landscape, the people, the weather, the cities? What about those things attract or repel you?

We also encourage submissions – that is, your Landscape questions and comments!
By submitting questions to TGP, you give permission to TGP to post my question on the website or in their newsletter.

Escapes