Ch’ien is the first hexagram of the I Ching. It represents pure creative energy, something that exists before form, labels, categories, or expectations.
That idea is what Ch’ien means to me.
Before the world tells us what to be, how to act, what to want, or where we are supposed to fit, there is simply the person underneath it all. I think we spend a lot of our lives adding labels until eventually we can forget who was there before them.
Ch’ien is my attempt to move in the other direction.
To let go of some of the things I have attached myself to. To question the ego. To spend more time in nature. To eat real food. To make things because I want to make them. To meet people without immediately deciding what category they belong in.
The market came from that same idea. Clothing, objects, art, books, and other things I have collected do not have to stay mine forever. They can move on, take on another life, and leave room for something new.
The community is an extension of that. A place where people can be seen as individuals before they are reduced to what they sell, make, collect, wear, or do for a living.
I do not want Ch’ien to become another brand telling people what they should be. I want it to stay open enough to change with the people who find their way into it.
Not a brand. Not just a store. Something allowed to become whatever it becomes.
Undefine yourself.
With love,
Ch’ien
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