Second Journey: The Road Back to Yourself

by Joan Anderson

‘You must literally be willing to begin again and again . . . energy is generated in the tension, the struggle. The pull and tug is everything.’”

life is a constant metamorphosis, especially for us women whose lives are partly controlled by the changing powers of

Traveling is not just seeing the new; it is also leaving behind. Not just opening doors; also closing them, never to return. But the place you have left forever is always there for you to see, whenever you shut your eyes.

There is more hope in a fresh future. A new season has begun, one in which I will let some fields lie fallow while others will be prepared for planting. As Joan Erikson was known to say: “All seeds have potential. It is time to stop stalling and start sowing.”

“Second journeys are usually thrust on people. They can be tragic or wonderful. Yours is surely the latter.”

“Getting rid of the clutter—people, activities, and responsibilities.

I’m done with anything that I find myself involved in halfheartedly. If I’m not fully engaged and feeling good about it, then it goes.”

At sixty-four my life is just beginning, and I need to move, once again, away from the predictable.”

There are the outlived events and relationships that we must celebrate and then let go of, and there are the unlived experiences that we must search for, welcome, and live into. I may not be able to see the road, but my immediate future is clear.

walking off the beaten path when in search of new direction and spiritual revivification.

“Learning from life is much more beneficial than learning from a book,” she would say, “because you are taking action. Action always creates reaction as well as change.”

You best head over to the west for the rocks—the beach is loaded with them. You only need touch them and you’ll feel something. They say it’s earth energy, some sort of magnetic force.” His quiet conviction is haunting.

I have discovered, you do not need to know what you are looking for—only that you are looking for something, and need urgently to find it. It is

the urgency that does the work, a readiness to receive that finds the answers.