The nomadic heart feels confined in a world of borders. Nomads are a direct lineage from the ancient Hunter-Gatherer tribes that once colonised the earth. The nomadic gene lives on in the heart of anyone who loves to travel and dreams of far off places. The explorer, the tourist, the writer and anyone who saves the Travel section of their newspaper, share a wandering gene that strains to visit foreign lands and see sunsets on new horizons. While we have settled into generations of permanence in the form of walls, windows and doors, there is always a part of us that gazes at the stars and dreams of faraway places.

Contentment is a word often associated with security and belonging, it’s a feeling of knowing and understanding your environment. When contentment nudges into boredom it becomes predictability and wants to stray across the fence to a world without borders. The Hunter-Gatherer gene survives in us because evolution takes millions of years and we, in evolutionary terms, are the grandchildren of the nomadic races that once roamed the earth. Nomadic tribes vigorously embrace mobility, the right to roam without constraints of political borders. The senses not the clock, the sky not the roof, and travel not history were the tenets of nomadic life.

Climate change, drought and famine caused Hunter-Gatherers to trans migrate, seeking better conditions in new lands. Many Hunter-Gatherer traits survive in our nomadic gene, however, they are linked to emotional response to an environment rather than if there is a bountiful berry crop. In a world where ideas and thoughts are pooled into one giant watering hole, the internet, there is a worry that we will become complacent and cease to use the nomadic gene that propels us to new experiences and heightened sensation in our natural world. New ideas arise from change. Drinking from stagnant waters causes malignancy. Evolution springs from new waters, out of the need to change. New ideas leading to shifts in consciousness arise from a mind that is not corralled by habit and predictability. Enjoy your house, your settled life and all that comes with it, but every now and again embrace your nomadic gene and live life on the hoof.

My new novel ‘Beyond the Two Doors’ is a modern-day story intertwined with stories from the Celts of Britain and Ireland, and the Scythian tribes of the European Steppes. Available worldwide on Amazon.

Collette O’Mahony 24/05/2022