|
7 - Civilisation In The Sanctuary
To start with, any sanctuary tends to be a confined smallish mindscape and whatever primary dwellings and structures there exist within are all there is in the way of traces of civilisation.
Sooner or later, other areas of civilisation tend to appear, from tiny hamlets to giant cities via anything in between; most of these bring with them challenges in some form or the other, but as you know by now, these challenges are nothing compared to the resource you have for solving the puzzles and overcoming the problems elegantly and completely.
Sometimes the sanctuary owner feels like building a city, community or dwelling of their own accord and for a particular purpose; this can be as easy or as time-consuming and involved a task as you might want it to be.
7/1 - Roads & Connections
The Roman empire would have gotten nowhere without the road building crews they sent up ahead; the American West could not have been opened successfully without the railroads.
I have lost count of how many people, who experienced a kind of "stuck ness" in their lives, be it regarding relationships, jobs, or general dissatisfaction, went on to then experience an amazing unfolding of possibilities and opportunities once they'd started to put in a few connections with the outer reaches of their inner space, beyond the inner sanctuary.
It didn't seem to matter much if they put in the equivalent of a medieval rutted track or a ten lane super highway, in every case this always "led to something new", if you pardon the expression!
Although in sanctuary terms transportation is not a problem in any way (as you can simply "wish yourself" to wherever you want to go, fly yourself, ride a dragon or even a broomstick if that's what turns you on), there does seem to be a strong connection between forward movement towards new ends and aims and the building of such permanent infra structures.
Roads, however, do not have to be confined to strictly literal roads.
Jessica had always wanted to travel, but was "stuck" with her young baby in a small council flat on social security. She surprised me by deciding very early on to have a railway station and a shining track, upon which a huge back steam engine with "Oriental Express" type luxury carriages awaited her and her child. Being the very picture of a modern girl, I don't know where that came from, but it certainly worked for her; the Universe unfolded and just a couple of months later, she moved to London, found a new man and a job in a company that organises big club events which entails, she tells me, both travel and excitement in plenty.
You can travel on waterways too; in one case, a young man whose sanctuary was a small island, experienced the unfolding shift after creating a new bay complete with a harbour and ocean going vessels; someone else put in a number of airports; yet someone else again had so many rivers that they needed to build a lot of bridges before any kind of regular overland travel was possible.
On the topic of overland travel, I will always gratefully remember a gentleman of oriental origin who connected various cities, dwellings and landscapes by an elaborate caravan route; a very romantic and stimulating idea, I thought; so I went ahead and stole that of him (sanctuary features aren't yet trademark-able!) just so that every so often an exotic caravan would stop by my sanctuary to trade my crystals and fruit for the most amazing and unusual artefacts, creatures, substances and materials.
However, I took that idea just one little step further - my own exotic caravan has a route that takes in most of the important planets in the Alpha Quadrant - well, why confine oneself to Planet Earth when there's so much more further fun to be had when you take a larger part of the galaxy into consideration?
|
GoE Home