Traveling Within

Weekly wisdom to level up your creative life in 3 minutes, for free.

A SHORT STORY

After a lifetime of travel, I've come to realize that traveling is a means to discover a home within oneself.

Freed from my usual routine, I can find what lies at the heart of me, my essence, and bring back something clearer and more well-rounded to the people I love.

It reminds me that home isn't necessarily where you live but what resides inside of you.

However, how does one maintain those discoveries we learn from travel?

This was certainly on my mind as I boarded the plane this Monday on my way home from Kenya.

As I meditated on that question, I kept thinking about how it's the homesickness that propels us forward in life.

Like Dorothy and Odysseus, we have an inner voice and compass that guides us, gnawing away at us, and reminding us of the way back home.

What I love about travel is how it allows you to begin to connect with that voice, listen to it, and allow it to guide you.

And, ultimately, how to bring forth those parts of you that each place inherently awakens.

And perhaps, finally, to return home.

What is a recent lesson you learned from your travels? How can you incorporate that into your day today?

A CREATIVE TOOL

I caught up with my friend Will Swanson in Kenya, who recently won two Emmy awards for the documentary below.

Knowing the backstory of all the hard work and life threatening situations they had to go through to uncover the truth, I’m truly in awe of the piece.

It reminds me what is possible when you have the simple seed of an idea. And more importantly, the importance to remind us all what kind of impact the creative act can have on multiple lives.

Check it out for some wild twists and turns!

A PIECE OF ART

“The House of Belonging” by David Whyte

originally published in The House of Belonging

I awoke
this morning
in the gold light
turning this way
and that

thinking for
a moment
it was one
day
like any other.

But
the veil had gone
from my
darkened heart
and
I thought

it must have been the quiet
candlelight
that filled my room,

it must have been
the first
easy rhythm
with which I breathed
myself to sleep,

it must have been
the prayer I said
speaking to the otherness
of the night.

And
I thought
this is the good day
you could
meet your love,

this is the black day
someone close
to you could die.

This is the day
you realize
how easily the thread
is broken
between this world
and the next

and I found myself
sitting up
in the quiet pathway
of light,

the tawny
close-grained cedar
burning round
me like fire
and all the angels of this housely
heaven ascending
through the first
roof of light
the sun has made.

This is the bright home
in which I live,
this is where
I ask
my friends
to come,
this is where I want
to love all the things
it has taken me so long
to learn to love.

This is the temple
of my adult aloneness
and I belong
to that aloneness
as I belong to my life.

There is no house
like the house of belonging.

Grateful,

Michael