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Elise Salish Wan
@elisesalishwan
Photographer and writer based in the US
One of the most formative moments in my childhood is the one and only time my brother and I were allowed to ride in the back of my father’s pickup truck while he slowly drove up the road through Mount Rainier National Park. Laying flat on my back, I remember the feeling of floating through a cathedral of conifers, observing the sunlight dance in the shadows of the forest, the scent of spruce and cedar, and eventually the chill of dense fog as we reached higher elevation. This experience reached deep into my subconscious and surfaced decades later when I realized this was the first time I felt love in its purest form.
"Love for the unknown, love for the wilderness, love for something forever undefinable."
My childhood was characterized by constant change – I attended five or six different schools before the age of eight. We eventually settled in the Pacific Northwest which became base camp for our many adventures. School field trips and summer camp focused on conservation and the natural sciences.
"This time in my life had a significant impact on the way I move in the world and created what a close friend once described as being “nomadic in heart, mind and spirit.”
Throughout much of my childhood, my parents would shake us up before sunrise, shuffle us half awake into the car, and onto the road in the pitch darkness. They would sometimes drive for twelve hour stretches at a time. We road tripped extensively throughout British Columbia and the entire Pacific Northwest region. My parents carry a deep love for the coast and we sailed on every ferry belonging to the largest fleet in the states, exploring one island after another. If we weren’t on the road or out at sea, we were on the trail, dragging behind our parents on grueling hikes up Mount Rainier.
"I’m very fortunate to be born into a family of explorers and hikers."
My family is gifted with a quality of pure curiously that I feel is incredibly rare. My parents simply allowed for adventures to unfold. I rarely saw them without a camera in their hands and often studied the bookcases full of film they developed over the years. I witnessed what they valued in their lives without it ever expressly stated. Photography, for me and for them, is a love letter to travel.
My brother eventually went on to become a mountaineer on summit expeditions around the same time I briefly lived in Mexico City by myself. This passion for travel and the outdoors is something deeply intrinsic in our ancestral DNA and something I feel with every cell in my body while on the trail or exploring wild places. Growing up outdoors, I discovered the value of communing with the Earth and developed a lasting reverence for the natural world. I discover through photography and my time in the wild the intimate connection we have with the Earth is less about a destination and more about the dance we have with it that demands us to be profoundly conscious in the present moment.
One defining event as an adult that had a cataclysmic impact on my life was moving to New York City by myself on a whim. I landed in JFK with two suitcases in hand with no plan, no friends, and no family. Now that it has been my home for almost a decade, I understand it was Spirit that guided me to the city. I don’t know what this Spirit is except that it feels very much like the time I was a young girl floating through the forest in the back of my dad’s pickup.
Linda Hogan, my favorite Indigenous writer captures this feeling perfectly with the following excerpt in her book, Dwellings: A Spiritual History of the Living World, which I carried everywhere with me and read a hundred times over while riding the subway:
“Walking, I can almost hear the redwoods beating. And the oceans are above me here, rolling clouds, heavy and dark. It is winter and there is smoke from the fires. It is a world of elemental attention, of all things working together, listening to what speaks in the blood. Whichever road I follow, I walk in the land of many gods, and they love and eat one another. Suddenly all my ancestors are behind me. Be still, they say. Watch and listen. You are the result of the love of thousands.”
Living in NYC, I discovered I possessed a strength that had long been dormant and I rewrote and refined my deepest held values. The intense energy of the city demands this of you. This is where, by sheer luck, I was introduced to my mentor, Curtis. Through dreamwork, art, Jungian based inquiry, and breathwork, he holds space for my deepest transformation and return to Self. Curtis has lived many incredibly unique lives, and this guidance, this living manifestation of pure magic, reveals the unseen. I learned to listen and watch for subtle synchronicities that further align me with my higher path. I always do. Most mornings I wake with a mindset of curiosity and I ask myself, what’s possible?
"My partner and I are full-time nomads and we’ve lived in different areas of California, New Mexico, Arizona, Washington, Colorado, Montana, and Utah in the last twelve months alone. The most valuable lessons I will never forget are the ones I’m learning right now. "
Home for us is a new location two weeks to two months at a time. This way of living requires a great deal of energy, logistical intelligence, flexibility, and the ability to adapt with grace to vastly different and often dramatic environments and cultures. Every day is a practice in understanding the use of my own energy and the risks and rewards of my lifestyle. I’m learning a great deal about how to best protect my health especially in times like these and social distancing yourself from others can be isolating at times but the right thing to do. Consistent self-care is necessary when you have an autoimmune disorder like mine.
Living, working, hiking, and exploring together all day every day is an intimate way to be in a relationship. In NYC, we had our own separate places: his in Manhattan and mine in Brooklyn. We met through a mutual friend in the summer of 2019 and half a year later we were living on the road. My last relationship ended ten years ago so while we’re learning everything that comes with a nomadic lifestyle, I’m also discovering an entirely new reality of being in a highly conscious relationship. It intensifies and accelerates an understanding of our behaviors, fears, desires, and dreams.
"We are evolving on every level. He helps me see what sets me back and what sets me free."
While I value my autonomy and independence, I also understand the value of co-creating a new life with my love. Before we met, I would often envision what it would feel like, look like, and sound like to simply point at a map and have all the resources necessary to live where you like for as long as you like. I’ve discovered how incredible life can be when I’m aligned with a partner who also values imagination, curiosity, travel, and exploration from his heart.
One of the first big lessons I learned in the last year is that trust is necessary for travel and exploration. Trust in yourself and surrendering to the unknown can birth a new inner universe, which to me, is creativity in its purest form. I trust my own wisdom and inner spirit above all else. Everything else is just noise.
I recently shared a translation of a poem with one of my photos, from the esoteric artist Rumi Jalalu’l-Din: “Those who do soul work, who want the searing truth more than solace or applause, know each other right away. Those who want something else turn and take a seat in another room. Soul-makers find each other’s company.”
"I resonate deeply with this because I know what it looks and feels like on both sides of this reality."
I know what it’s like to take a seat in a room and know instinctively in your gut and in your heart it is not for you. Whether it’s a job, a profession, a relationship, or the place where you live. During my time in Seattle, I was a musician. I wrote songs with my bands, collaborated in various projects, recorded in the studio, and played shows. It took quite a few years to accept this was a space that could not satisfy the fullest expression of myself.
The more I live in alignment with my values, the right people, places, and experiences naturally begin to show up in a big way. My energetic being attracts the like. I usually find what I seek even if I don’t know what it looks or feels like yet. Sometimes it finds me. This manifests often in my travels, in my dreams, and through my creative mediums.
In my work, I value getting into the heart of things. Our time is our most valuable resource and small talk does not interest me. Our inner universe is immeasurably vast, wild, and infinitely valuable. It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living, how old you are, your relationship status, or where you live. To paraphrase the brilliant author Oriah in her book The Invitation: I want to know if you desire to meet your heart’s longing, if you will risk looking like a fool for the adventure of being profoundly alive, if you can sit equally with joy and pain without hiding or fixing it, if you can dance with wildness without shame or shyness, if you have the courage to descend into your own shadows, and if you can be alone with yourself and truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.
It is both an elegant and messy vehicle for lasting and deep reaching catharsis. It is a commitment to vulnerability and discomfort. Behind the lens, I’m a feeling, silent observer and learn to see things from a deeper perspective. I photograph what I feel and imagine. Photography, much like the power of the written word, bridges the ordinary physical and sacred metaphysical. Photography is an intimate journey and a portal into the unknown.
As a naturally curious person, I guide myself by the following metrics of responsible and conscientious travel: how my presence affects the local ecosystem, if I know the names of surrounding geographic features, plant life, and animals endemic to the area, if I’m familiar with the indigenous territory I visit and where there were once internment camps, plantations, and massacres that took place, if I understand how and which companies in the area are polluting the local environment, do I engage with my relationship to the land or do I ignore it, and do I participate in truth and justice or weakly turn a blind eye to it? An act of wrongdoing to the land or to a human ten thousand miles away is an injustice upon us all no matter where we are. One metric of ethical travel abroad is understanding none of us have the right to take a photograph of a person outside our own culture without asking for their permission first.
"As travelers, we will do well to understand that they don’t need us, even if our intentions are pure."
Clarissa Pinkola Estés, author of Women Who Run With the Wolves, speaks to my journey in another way: “The doors to the world of the wild Self are few but precious. If you have a deep scar, that is a door, if you have an old, old story, that is a door. If you love the sky and the water so much you almost cannot bear it, that is a door. If you yearn for a deeper life, a full life, a sane life, that is a door.”
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