According to Zen priest and writer Norman Fisher, the spiritual journey is a journey of return; returning home to ourselves and our lives exactly as they were in the first place. It's a deep and interesting realisation, found in many wisdom traditions.

Today, on the last day of this year, you may find yourself looking back and looking forward at your life at hands. It’s easy to think of such a transition as a linear one; 2009 is behind us, let’s move on to the next. Especially if we have had a rough year, we seem impatient to burn down our bridges and leap into the seemingly fresh New Year.
 
We could also envision ourselves as returning, rather than moving forward on a straight line. This may be a more daring approach, urging us not to ditch the experiences and feelings we so badly want to get rid of from last year and setting up all our hopes for the one ahead. If we explore the sense of returning on a day such as today, we appreciate the path quality –and depth of our lives better.

The journey of return is all about seeing and appreciating our lives as it is. Paradoxically, in order to realize that we have everything we need, we must move away from it. “The mystery (and pain!) of our lives” as Norman Fisher reminds us, “is that we are where we need to be, but we don’t know it.” This is how we strangely find ourselves setting sail, leaving shore only to find out that the very life we left was exactly where we needed to be.

When I was little, one of my favorite books was about this journey of return. It was called ‘Oh, how beautiful is Panama’ (Oh, wat mooi is Panama!). It was about a little bear and a little tiger that where bored with the place they were living, and heard about a land called Panama. Panama seemed to them everything their current place was not; it was exotic and beautiful. They took off on their journey to Panama, and encountered all kinds of creatures and adventures on their way. In the end, they do find Panama and it is as beautiful as in their dreams. It had exactly the perfect house for them, the perfect climate, everything as they appreciate most. What they didn’t know -but us smart readers did- was that what they thought was Panama was actually the home they left in the first place.

It is the same with us, off course. Our deepest joy and fulfillment lies in our ability to appreciate and return to ourselves and our lives just as we are, moment after moment, year after year, through sickness, bliss, heartache and health. At the same time, in order to do so, we must journey out to look for our own Panama. This is why; we take the journey of return not to end up in a new and improved place, but rather to find our very selves new and improved in the old place.

So take a moment today to reflect on where your journey of return took you this year. What adventures and new creatures did you encounter and how did they affect you? How did these experiences guide you back home; to appreciating the life you have right now, today, December 31st, 2009?

Wishing you many adventurous and beautiful journeys of return in the next year.

Love,
Geertje