There was a series of months in which I liked to ask people what their vision of paradise was. In Austria, I met a woman named Bea Von Schrader. She is an artist, and a mother, and a mentor—she wears many hats without wearing any hats. I asked her my question and she told me, “I think my idea of paradise changes everyday.”
Until that moment, it had not occurred to me that paradise could be anything other than concrete. I thought paradise was the ultimate bar we set, like the farthest star in our personal galaxy. Somewhere along the way I picked up this idea that paradise is something that remains the same. What Bea expressed, which has always stayed with me, is the sentiment that paradise could, can, and will alter as you do.
In retrospect, it seems pompous to think that paradise is stagnant. How much more magical, and colorful is it to imagine a liberated paradise, one that not dependent but connected with you? Imagine a paradise that gives you freedom, to change, and to experience the joy of finding the who you are repeatedly. This paradise plays like a shapeshifter fluxing, through being birthed again and again, to reunite with your conscious mind.
Today paradise is Indigo Blue, wrapping your head and shoulders in light like a bioluminescent scarf spotted with stars. Yesterday it was an uninhibited dance around the glowing embers of a sustained fire. What will tomorrow bring of if, and of you?