July’s Theme is Treasure.
Treasure takes many forms, both physical and intangible. Yours may be a ring that has been passed down to you from your ancestors. A hidden spring of water in a parched land. The budding, implicit trust of a new friend. New photographs of the wider galaxy, full of iridescent swirls of matter and light. The ruins of a people from a faraway time and place.
Our instinct is to clutch them tightly. We seal our treasures in glass cases, to preserve them from time’s decay, to display them as testaments to our worth. We fear their loss, yet in this fear, we lose our ability to cherish them. We must soften our grip and magnify our time spent in their presence, precisely because nothing will stay with us. Eventually, even crown jewels will pass into dust.
What happens when we expand what we treasure beyond the rare, the beautiful, and the precious to the ordinary and the unnoticed? Even graffitied poetry on the side of a bus stop is a relic of someone who had passed through there, leaving traces for future archaeologists to excavate. What treasures can only you discern?
Our Brisbane chapter chose this month’s exploration of Treasure, Spectator Jonze illustrated the theme, and Mailchimp is presenting the theme.
