I was watching the movie, Hostiles, and heard myself saying out-loud tearfully, “I have to return. I have to go back!” A Native American elder was returning to his home as a dying wish after incarceration by the US government.

Since I was a child the Appalachian Mountains have called me. When my parents asked my brother and me where we wanted to go on vacation I’d prompt my brother to say…the MOUNTAINS! He didn’t….but I tried. Anything to get back there…to spend time in those sacred and most-ancient mountains on the planet. I remember feeling so at home there and so much myself…so connected to the land and my own bones. Then the leaving….was heart-rending.

I lived there for six years and loved it but felt called to the shores of my birth where I’ve spent six years healing and connecting with energies needed to finish the process of preparing me for the next step in the journey.

Any time an impending move is explored, there are questions and ponderings. Before I put my energy 100% behind something as big as this, I want to be sure. So last night before bed I asked to be given a sign pointing me to where I feel called.

After not sleeping much I checked email during the night and found an email from a dear friend referring to my move to the Asheville area. And then tonight….the movie and the message directly from my soul, “I have to return! I have to go back!”

I don’t know how life works…how we feel ancestral connections so strongly and why our bones vibrate with some places so strongly. I can only surrender to the dance of my heart’s rhythm and the song of my soul as it guides me gently back, back, back to those ancient mountains.

Home…ultimately it is the Self, not an outward geographic location. And yet there are places that urge us inward and support and nurture that journey of the Pilgrim…the Fool’s travels on the Tree of Life…the Spiritual Warrior’s Empty-Handed Leap into the Void.

I. AM. READY.