Essence of Journey 🗺

Essence of is a monthly editorial deep dive into meaning.

This digital curation of words, imagery, and sound is an invitation to pull the curtain back on the magic, miracles, and mysteries embedded in everyday life.

Dear friend,

Everything is colliding in this moment 😵‍💫

All I've ever been has deposited me here like a wave. All I'll ever be lies ahead of me. And here I sit, in this magnificent, irreplaceable, irrepeatable present moment.

I am on a great big journey that began with an affirmative cry one February 28th at 12:34 pm in a too-bright hospital room. I don't know exactly when or where this journey will end but I'm hoping for another 100 years or so, because I like it here.

Countless other journeys layer over my lifeline like lace; all different sizes, shapes, and densities.

Like the road to love. Though it's been generous with soft kisses and magnetic gazes, I've landed myself in a few deep valleys of heartache along the way—all of which I lingered in for a little too long before finally licking my wounds and climbing out. But since crossing a rickety bridge over the river of grief and illusion, I've realized this journey is way more about my relationship with my own heart than I ever imagined. On the other side, the road is far smoother and lined with pink cherry blossoms. I let my steps be slow as I approach the stunning landscape unfolding on the horizon.

My career path is my favorite mystery. An intricate labyrinth of tall, green hedges holds prizes, surprises, and plenty of dead ends at each turn. The perfume of colorful flowers fills the air and slows my thoughts when worry creeps in. I encounter old and new friends on the path who walk with me for some time and show me the way. On the days when I'm tired, I rest in a cool patch of grass. On the days when I hit a few too many dead ends in a row, I find a tall magnolia tree and climb up its knots and branches to orient myself in the big picture.

Although I tripped out of the gate on my journey with my body, I have pride in how far I've come. Chronic disease placed me at the bottom of a deep hole which I dug even deeper with the cold shovel culture places in every young woman's hands. I never hit gold, only water. In the rippled reflection, I saw that I couldn't hate my body healthy, or skinny, or pretty. I eventually pulled myself out on a rope I hand-wove of Chinese herbs and Louise Hay affirmations. With a bit of grit and a whole lotta softness, I passed through the gates of the widely-discussed but rarely-visited promise land of self-love. Here, my body is my ally; my muse; my generous friend who whispers wisdom into my ear.

These macro-journeys are embedded with many many micro-journeys—like my predictable trip to the grocery store at 9:45 on a Wednesday evening for a bar of dark chocolate. Or the extra 10 minutes I drive to go to my favorite coffee shop across town.

All of these journeys overlap each other seamlessly. The way I'm able to be fully immersed in the landscape of each simultaneous journey makes me think the multiverse theory might be onto something 🤔

Though each journey I find myself on has some imagined end-point, some holy grail, I'm beginning to think the concept of a destination might actually be total bullshit.

Photo by Luisa Pineda, Styled by Amy Lohr

There is a brief moment of arriving, yes—one to be absolutely soaked in and celebrated. But we are pilgrims. We are always in motion.

Even when I complete a journey, a new one begins. Once I've climbed to the top of the ladder, the bottom rung of a new one appears. The only arriving I can really do is continually arriving in the present moment.

With each journey I move through (in my own life, on soft pages of beloved fiction books, vicariously through the characters of 1980s cult classics), I watch with fascination, the underlying patterns of movement.

Combined with whispers of intuition I've trained myself to lean into, I've grown quite confident in my ability to know where I'm at in the landscape of each journey and what's coming next (though life both humbles and delights me often with surprises).

I rest my focus on those patterns often because I've learned there's power in knowing where you're at in your unfolding journey.

When I'm at the top of the wave, in a moment of peak ecstasy—and I know it—I can fully take it in…but with a loose grip. Because, with awareness of life's cycles (and basic physics), we know that what goes up comes down.

On any journey, a rhythm of expansion and contraction is to be expected.

So in the moments when I'm at the bottom of the wave, in a low place—and I know it—my acknowledgment and acceptance of my location in the journey allows me to soften into the depth, to rest and receive help. And again, with awareness of the patterns, I know an upswing is due. In those valleys of the soul, faith is my greatest strength.

That way, when ~the big kahuna~ comes, I'm well-rested, unbothered, moisturized, and ready to bring my fullness to the moment. When we lean into the natural rhythms of our journey, we can receive life more fully.

As I'm sitting down to write this next section, the voice of my seventh grade pre-algebra teacher, Mrs. Gowens, is intruding my thoughts. She had a grayness and stiffness to her, and usually didn't have anything interesting to say; due dates, x-variables, complaints about the lack of military cuts on the boys in my class, who looked like a bunch of “shaggy dogs” according to her.

Whenever someone griped about the lengthy homework assignments, she said, “You don't have to do it,” with an East Texas twang to her voice. “I can just give you a zero. All you have to do in this life is die and pay taxes.”

Although the rebel in me would argue with the necessity of the latter, her words have remained in the back of my mind for the last decade and a half as a reminder of just how much choice we have in what we do with our lives—death being the only inescapable clause we agree to before arriving on Earth.

We don't have to do much of anything. I don't have to embark on any journeys of my own. I could blow like a leaf in the wind aimlessly (or hide in my bedroom under a weighted blanket). Part of me is turned on by the prospect of eternally wandering from moment to moment without a worry in the world (…and by the whole lying in bed for eternity thing).

Many spiritual people have even told me this soulful wandering and lack of pursuit is what enlightenment looks like. Some shrug, and say, “This reality is merely an illusion, so why bother?” Others warn me that any material pursuits are sticky traps set by greed.

They've got a point.

We take nothing to the grave. Their calls are meant to draw us away from the mainstream paths culture prescribes; the paths that give priority to material gain and end in unfulfillment at best. Temporary detachment from pursuit can create some much-needed distance from the noise of what we we're told we “should” do with our lives.

Seasons of spaciousness and even aimless wandering are soooooo necessary. If you've never given that to yourself and your soul is parched for a deeper level of freedom, go. But I don't believe eternal wandering is something we're made to stay in.

While our culture's overdrive for accomplishment can feel anything but natural, extensive aimlessness quickly becomes unnatural too. Ambition and direction are integral aspects of our ecosystem. Trees reach for the sky day-after-day. The birds and butterflies head north each spring and the whales follow. Bees zoom from flower-to-flower, collecting nectar to lay at the altar of their queen.

Who is your queen? Where does your north star hang? What pulls you onwards and upwards—past the bounds of your comfort zone and into the unknown?

Fortified by a healthy dose of aimlessness, rest, playful wandering, and sitting under trees (a la Buddha), something within will emerge. And that special-something will spill over the edges of your heart and take you on a new journey.

A golden thread tugs at each heart. It's that through line that connects us to our center, yet touches all of our edges. It's the factor that remains constant amidst change.

Reach for that thread—often. Feel its texture. Follow its lead. Cultivate intimacy with it, and let its gentle tugs orient you.

The best journeys are the ones embarked upon from the heart. When we lead from this place, we contribute our golden thread to the ever-expanding tapestry of creation.

Your golden thread will guide you to ancient temples within your own heart, filled to the brim with diamonds and rubies; treasure you can take to the grave. Your job, dear Indiana Jones, is to listen to what calls out to you—and summon the courage to answer.

Life may begrudgingly push you onto the paths you're meant to travel through experiences of loss, rejection, or the unexplainable feeling that something's just not quite right with the direction you've been going. And life will graciously pull you into your destined direction with exciting invitations and little clues that leave you curious.

Staying close to that golden thread and the dreams it bestows will offer you a source of clarity at each fork in the road. However it shakes out, the journeys you're meant to go on will not pass you by.

But, just because the journeys you embark on from a place of inner-guidance feel right, doesn't mean they won't feel scary as shit.

There's always a point in the journey where you are asked to cross the threshold from the known to the unknown. Ya know, that moment when the floor falls out from under you and you feel like you're launching into the void of space, completely untethered? Equally thrilling and terrifying stuff.

I think we oughta lean into this discomfort, and keep feeling our way through the dark—because this continues to be the point in my own journeys where I re-discover myself.

In these liminal spaces, the solidity of who I've known myself to be (or who the world told me to be) falls away. There's a death that happens there. It hurts, and it's confusing, and all I want to do is run back to where I came from.

But when I soften into the experience, and surrender to a bit of chaos and destruction, the masks I've been wearing slip off—revealing my essence; that part of me that has always been and will always be.

The dizziness born from this part of the path is eased by getting grounded. The Earth is our companion in every journey, literally supporting our every step. When things feel a lil too ~loosey goosey~ a dose of nature is the perfect medicine.

Another cheat code for expertly navigating the confronting nature of the liminal spaces along our journeys? Fluidity in your sense of self.

Ask: How attached am I to the version of me I've known myself to be? Can I loosen that grip and allow new expressions of my identity to bubble up?

There may come a point in the journey where you need your inner-warrior to to fight for you and your vision with grit and determination. Other times you may need the nurturing touch of your inner-mother or the curious musings of your inner-child. Fluidity of self makes the various sides of yourself more available for use throughout the journey. The vast library of archetypes within bridge us to our destination.

And it sure will be exciting to reach that holy grail. But I've found time and time again that the real gift of any journey is in the new parts of ourselves that emerge along the way; the new capacities and desires.

You get to take it all with you on the next journey, which will surely begin again.

How journeys sound to me:

✰ Douna by Ablaye Cissoko

Y'all I have listened this song thousands of times. I am really not exaggerating. I love it so much—I wish I could present it to your beautiful ears on a golden platter. I don't speak a lick of Senegalese but I know every word from phonetics alone.This song carried me across the desert and through a season of heartbreak. Though my heart has healed, Douna remains an anthem of softness and strength. An absolute banger for traversing liminal space.

✰ A Town with an Ocean View by Joe Hisaishi

Each Studio Ghibli film presents an epic adventure that is somehow inclusive of wonder, innocence, strength, absurdity, and beauty all at once. Their delicate soundtracks make me feel as if I'm strolling through a field in the rural lands of yesteryear.

Wanna journey with me to Mexico this fall?

 Join me for a playful retreat in Todos Santos, Mexico that empowers you to get un-stuck and step into a fresh archetype.

Through immersive experiences, this retreat will support you in healing, exploring, and expressing what is percolating within your heart.

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