Beloved,
The Pacific koel is migrating north this month. Its small internal compass tells it to go home. I’ve felt this too. Once, I heard that same call but fell into an achingly deep crisis when I realized I wasn’t a home for myself, and had no land, no house, no country to return to.
So I became silent. For months, I couldn’t speak, afraid that giving words to my homelessness would make it more real. Yet that silence became its own kind of listening, wordless, tender, and true.
I want to speak to you without speaking. But I also know that sometimes a single word can save a life. For me, that word was home. It led me into the depths of nonduality, an ancient teaching whose fundamental insights are now being echoed in neuroscience. Overly masculine interpretations often distort nonduality, but at its heart, it isn’t about rising above or ridding ourselves of anything, but about meeting life so intimately that the boundary between self and world begins to dissolve.
There is a gentler, truer way to discover the universe within — and as — who we are. We do not need to look away or return to illusion, as Yashoda did when she saw the cosmos inside her child’s open mouth. We can simply listen.
I’ve gathered a personal soundscape of birds, thunder, the playground, and the cafe from my week, and added a single question for you to listen with — a way of deepening your direct experience of home.
I look forward to hearing what you discover.
