Wayfinding

The Four Levels of Listening

Here’s the single best word of advice I’ve ever learned: Listen.

When I was young and confused, trying to figure out how the world works, I had to listen. When I traveled the world and encountered new cultures, it was even more crucial to listen. Learning sociology meant learning more deeply how to listen. In the wilderness, trackers showed me how to listen. As a coach intent on helping people, my first task is to listen. As I train coaches, I find myself saying it over and over again: listen.

Right now the world seems to consist entirely of huge changes [...]

How to Seek Sanctuary in a Time of Chaos

Every few months I have a recurring dream: I’m walking through my home and notice a door I’ve never seen before. I open the door to find an enormous room—a cathedral, actually—with sky-high ceilings and glorious stained-glass windows. My reaction isn’t surprise, but recognition. “Oh, yeah!” I think in the dream. “I knew this was here all along! I just forgot.” Along with the memory of the space comes the memory of its function. The cathedral in my dream is there to offer sanctuary.

A lot of us could use a little sanctuary right now. As I write this, cases [...]

Time to Transform

Any normal year, I’d be prepping for my annual pilgrimage to this place: Londolozi, South Africa. This year, though I can’t go there, Londolozi is helping me see this pandemic in a different light.

In the 1970s, two South African teenagers named Dave and John Varty were devastated by the sudden death of their father. The boys were advised to sell the family’s barren cattle farm in the bushveld. Instead, they decided to try something they called “restoring Eden.” Not realizing how crazy this idea was, the Vartys spent years repairing the terrain and waterflow, bringing native plants back to [...]

Can you say metaphor?

This is my second year in Pennsylvania, and I have to say, spring sprang faster last year. One day, it seemed, green burst out of the bare trees like fireworks: BOOM!

During a lockdown, the explosion of green seems to be going in slow motion. The forest is still pretty much brown and gray. The machinery of life is going full tilt, but I don’t see much to celebrate yet.

CAN YOU SAY METAPHOR?

The pandemic has thrown a shadow over Earth. For those of us stuck at home or fighting the virus or both, it can feel very cold up in [...]

How to Live a Wayfinder’s Life

This time of year, I sometimes wake up to the sound of people arguing loudly in a hot air balloon just above my house. 

Not really.

After a few minutes, I figure what I’m actually hearing: a flock of Canada geese. My house is right on their migratory route, and hundreds of flocks fly past us, honking and yawping at each other to stay in touch. They fly thousands of miles every year. We should all be so good at navigating the world. 

In a way, we can be. But only by tuning in very, very closely to what we Wayfinder coaches [...]

Be ‘Home’ for the Holidays

When I was a child, I loved the holidays for the stuff—candy, cookies, advent calendars, and, of course, presents. As a young adult, I wanted perfect situations: everyone feeling good, looking good, doing good deeds. This got so stressful that by midlife, I decided that I’d just focus on finding peace. I called it going Home for the holidays—not home as in a geographic location, but my real Home: a state of calm, relaxed being.

I didn’t expect much from this new practice of Homing, just a little stress relief. But it turned out I’d stumbled into some real holiday magic. [...]

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