Sometimes the best wisdom is old wisdom. Now, I have a few issues with the way TED talks have evolved, but we aren’t here to have that conversation. We’re here to talk about how sometimes they have really cool talks that make you think. Talks like this one.

I’ll spare you from the 16 minutes of watching the video (though, if you love Irish accents, it’s worth every second!) and summarize: the Irish language is beautiful, grief can be phrased beautifully in Gaelic, and the wisdom of old folk tales shouldn’t be underestimated. While I could happily expound for days on the first two, it was the third that really caught at my thoughts.

In the talk, Mr. Ó Héalaí tells a story to help make his point. It goes back to an old Celtic legend that I can’t find for citation in order to save my life. Basically, this fellow goes and gets a bunch of treasure, so much he needs help getting it back home. He hires help – the best bunch of helpers ever, and they do great. They’re speeding along, but after 2 months or so, they grow really lethargic. He asks what’s going on, and one of them says that they’re so far away from their land and peoples, that they’ve traveled so far so fast, that they need to sit for a spell and “let our souls catch up to us.”

I heard that and nodded so hard my glasses fell off.

Yes.

This.

I know the feeling, that exact feeling. Though it usually has less to do with the distance I’ve physically traveled.

Often, I seek release and repose through my creativity. I write, I paint, I cook. I do something to reach out and touch my creative soul to the fabric of imagination. There’s a reason I love doing NaNoWriMo every year (participant for 6 years, 3 years of which have hit the 50k mark, but I intend to make it 4 by the end of the month). It is a 30-day stint in a world of my own imagining, a world where my soul can catch up after the chaos of summer.

Don’t forget to find a way to reconnect. Sit down, wait. We weren’t made for the world to be this fast.

It’s okay to stop running the race for a breather.

Just… let your soul catch up.

 

 

Now, if you’ll excuse me for a little while, I’m going to sit down in a world of my own imagining and wait until I’m all together again. Because it’s November, and you know what that means.