Authentic Travel
Travel, for many, is a search for an authentic cultural experience. Many a trekker, tourist, and seeker have found themselves going to greater lengths, greater distances, and greater cost to find “unique,” “real,” and “meaningful” encounters; a momentary refuge from the day-to-day reality of a modern life. Lives all over the world have been touched through travel because unique and inspiring experiences offer precisely the ingredient for change. And sometimes those momentary encounters of authenticity can be just the right experience to send a rippling current of change throughout our lives. The experience of, and subsequent quest for, meaningful connection has led me to journeys around the world. Now, with a better understanding of this ingredient I have realized that the truth is we don’t need to go all that far to find authentic and meaningful cultural experiences. Through unlikely conversations with farmers and artisans I have heard eloquent descriptions of U.S. landscapes and communities as fodder for authenticity. And I have been so inspired as these conversations have me looking forward (not backward) to a time where are values guide us into deeper connection with communities.
Authenticity is really about acting from an sense of authority anchored to a sense of self. There is a love and understanding that comes when we show up to a community ready to explore and connect. And it is bringing many of us to simply seek more pure encounters with the hyper-local. Gavin Johnston, a heritage breed farmer in Westport, New York thinks that the values guiding a new food movement are here to stay,
“Local, sustainable, farming and local food, and all the values that go with them are not a fad. They’re here to stay. The values and the kind of people that are being drawn to this movement are admirable, interesting, and becoming more and more sexy in all senses of the word. The people creating these small (and some big) farms are endless sources of inspiration and interest”
He has said out loud something that I have been feeling but haven’t been able to put into words. I just nod in agreement as he continues thoughtfully,
“Americans have thrown themselves so far down shallow and meaningless paths of disconnected work and play, that the FARM, is going to more and more represent something authentic.”
Maybe it comes off as one of Rockwell’s illustrations to paint Suffolk or Addison County as a pastoral dream that might re-ignite that lost connection- to work, to community, to land. Yet, connection to land and an inner compass for self reliance really do seem inherent in the words – farm, farmer, pasture, earth. That may be, in part, because whether I venture Khenti Aimag or Sullivan County, I have found no better gateway to cultivate human connection –to land and people and the connections between –than through our food. In this light, the adage, “know your food,” may very well be synonymous with, “know your people.” Maybe because food hits so many different aspects of human existence. Maybe because food is so basic. But with each passing day, I believe more and more strongly that people want to work with their hearts, with their souls, with their hands; not simply with their heads. Connecting to our communities and to our land in our search for the “authentic” life is the heart of the seeker’s journey. And wherever it takes me, it is well worth the journey.
