In the past 36 hours I’ve traveled through New Jersey, Zurich, Athens, and Skiathos (a large Greek island) to get to Alonnisos (a small Greek island).

I’ve been on a large plane, a medium-sized plane, a small plane, a boat and several taxis that ranged from a Mercedes sedan to a beat-up Fiat. I’ve climbed a cobbled hillside in unfortunate wedges, and sprinted through an ordinarily orderly airport. I’ve offered all my tissues to the distraught woman next to me, and received warm embraces from people I had not seen in a year, and who I was sure would never remember me.

With each step on this full journey, a layer of my high-brow, high-tech, high-output life is peeled away. I strip-tease into my own naked grace.

I don’t choose big cities any more – London, Paris, Tokyo and the like have lost their appeal. In my physical travels as well as the spiritual ones, I pass through civilization before getting to the heart of things. The journey takes me from disordered order to ordered disorder.

My soul seeks out the places where adventure and simplicity lie intimately together.

Where life is pared down to its basic elements – eat, sleep, work. And love.

With every step, I release the familiar responsibilities (although not completely) and take on the chaos of existence. Up and out and through and beneath I go. The essence of who I am shifts from protected and productive to bare and open.

Thankfully my travel amnesia (the apparent first cousin to birth amnesia) has wiped out all memories of how challenging this particular trip is. I arrive in a ragglety-tagglety mess. But that last boat ride, where I allow the ocean breeze to whip my hair around my face, and the sun to fill me with energy, replenishes my inner reservoir. My body could sure use a nap, as could my mind, but my heart is vibrantly overflowing.

Even before I step onto the ground of this remote island, the pulse is tuning me to the heart of it. It’s just quiet enough for me to hear.

As I arrive, coming to terms with all that I’ve shed to get to this place – in my life, in my career – I allow the rightness of this moment to touch my newly revealed tender spots. The asynchronous beats find a shared rhythm. Within and without.

I will spend these two weeks enjoying some of my favorite things – writing, yoga, communing with seekers and creators. And let’s not forget the ocean, the food and… ahem… the men.

The anticipation tickles me like rising champagne bubbles, intoxicating me into the possibilities of what will be. I snuggle in and burrow down, trying but not trying to settle even more deeply into the heart of it.

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