Today begins my journey. I’m sitting in the Seattle-Tacoma airport waiting for a flight to Philadelphia. In roughly a week, I’ll recross the country by car. It’s always a bit dislocating to fly cross country. To be on one coast in the morning and the other by evening, crossing a number of states and all US time zones.

I’ve done it dozens of times, but today is special because I’m not going “home.” I’m not tearing myself away from the one and the place I love. I’m going back east to begin my full time relocation to Washington State.

It’s a poignant journey. Tonight my two nephews will pick me up, and it’ll be the last time for the foreseeable future that I’ll see one of them because he’s got other plans during our family get together this weekend. That event will be my mother’s 85th birthday. Tomorrow I’ll teach one last yoga class at the studio where I did my training and that has been a touchstone in my spiritual process. Saturday night an open house to say goodbye to friends. And next Wednesday one last sitting with my beloved teacher who midwifed my second birth awakening and the community we share of awakening folks.

By next Thursday I hope to set off across the width of Pennsylvania on the first leg of my cross-country odyssey. I plan to make posts along the way as I pass through and sometimes stop off at America’s notable and mundane way-stations along the northern edge of the Great Plains. I’ll be in touch.