Livingston.. Burton.. Teleki.. Thesiger.. Blavatsky and Reich…. Messner.. Cousteau.. Campbell.. the Powys and Leakeys. Adventurers, explorers, ground breakers all in the fields of their passion for discovery and travel. My inspirations and heroes have always been such as these walkers of worlds, inner and outer. I have been fortunate to meet many and trail in their shadows. And in common with each I also thrill at the feeling that comes for every journeyer when one actually has to set out… no more planning, no more gathering of information and resources. Just begin.
Travel writer Paul Theroux wrote “I felt as if I was forever having to account for my movements… and having to make it seem they mattered.”
I have never personally struggled psychically with such an inner battle to justify a lifetime of travel. I was raised in a tiny trailer; a mobile home on wheels. Perhaps that is why the feeling of the earth rolling beneath my feet is home? I wonder at those who can say with certainty “my home is my world”. I have had to accept that “the world is my home”.
For me, X marks the spot on a soul’s treasure map, where life’s paths have intersected, and precious parts of myself remain, and in this circular world may re-orient me once again before the migration resumes.
I have been certain from early that my migrations are destined, and are measured less by miles than by mutation, and the personal change that is the inverse product of inner distances covered. I follow forces that determine and guide my inner reckoning. No matter the earthly imprints; only the impressions in our soul’s matter that deepen with each foot placed on our personal path towards a distant hoped for home for the spirit. I leave one… so I can return to it anew.
I’ve contemplated the smooth rubbings on giant rocks and trees where elephants, long disappeared, have paused in their wanderings as migrating monarchs… the hand prints of humans in caves that marked and gave meaning to ancestral two-legged marches… the etching of insects on petrified wood that reveal their ancient generational presence. Messengers all, though all are long lost to the message.
The Nomadic impulse for other creatures runs deep as well. There is no choice but to unbidden go. Wildebeest and butterflies, whales, germs, and terns; the minute and mighty. I doubt that either finds much joy in the impulsive, repetitive nature of the journey. It comes from deep within and over-rules any attempt at lingering. Destiny and choice co-mingle with the inner drive to finally arrive home. But the longing for home itself doesn’t seem to allow home to ever manifest. All attempts at rootedness are doomed to failure. Powerful movements do not allow for hindsight or looking back.
I’ve left, landed, lingered, then left again, with dread and joy for inner and outer explorations most of my life. Plans, preparations, and possibilities have been my guideposts. But never have I questioned my wanderlust. Each journey has simply been an expression of my own personal programming that can only be fulfilled in a more distant setting, or within some energy that seems to activate an inner code that turns the wheel, and I move forward once again.
A Soul’s safari