I recently read this fab article by Holly Williams: ‘How Björk has helped me heal from heartbreak’ – concerning the author’s relationship with Björk’s 1997 album ‘Homogenic’ and its ‘remarkable remedial power.’ To me, there’s always been something beautiful around the idea of an artist’s creative output exerting an empathic healing quality far outside its own parameters, and this article prompted me to reflect on my own journey with Björk over the years. In the past few weeks, I have been particularly drawn to the 2007 track ‘Wanderlust’:
Björk – Wanderlust (Vulnicura Live)
The lyrics marry well with the landscape I find myself in now – embarking on a journey into full-time therapy provision, to also incorporate therapeutic writing group work. Drawing on David Byrne, I might ask myself ‘How did I get here?’ – and surprisingly, there is a fairly simple answer. Like Björk, I have in my adult life always been drawn to a need for movement and space, where new ideas, ways of being, experiences and so on can take seed and grow – pretty in keeping with the dictionary definition of ‘Wanderlust’ as ‘A strong desire to travel.’
The phrase she uses, ‘relentless restlessness,’ perhaps contains something of a double-edged quality – on paper at least, the idea of being ‘relentlessly restless’ might not sound too comfortable, but it is the core ethos behind this that speaks to me – not so much a sense of nomadic rootlessness but a liberating state of always being open to the next step of the journey and the challenges it may bring. When she says ‘I feel at home whenever the unknown surrounds me,’ there is a sense of unbridled possibility and courageousness – to stare a path shrouded in fog in the face and not only keep walking, but to do so with joy, anticipation, even a sense of belonging.
I am reminded here of the innumerable journeys I have been on with my clients over these past several years, and how their willingness to take those steps into the unknown (often so terrifying to start off with) are the foundations of every single thing they will subsequently build in their inner and outer landscapes. At some point or other, the fear may indeed morph into something closer to what Björk describes – comfort in the movement, even a sense of adventure as the path continues to evolve and new features pop up along the way. I suppose this is my hope for myself now, too – but of course only time will tell what the landscape will look like in the years to come. Whatever it may be, I am heartened that its origin lay in a spirit of creativity and movement… or, simply put, wanderlust.
Simon
Nozomi Counselling & Psychotherapy 