I noticed that a recent New Yorker article with the title “The Case Against Travel” received a lot of push back in the comments on Instagram.
People love to travel. But the article challenges us to question why we think travel is such a significant endeavor:
“They may speak of their travel as though it were transformative, a ‘once in a lifetime’ experience, but will you be able to notice a difference in their behavior, their beliefs, their moral compass? Will there be any difference at all?”
I’m not much of a traveler myself, so I appreciated this, as well as the recent “Reconsidering the Staycation” article in the New York Times. Staycations tend to be my preferred form of “travel” because they foster inner voyages.
The writer didn’t enjoy staycations until she started approaching them by pondering this question:
“If I were moving away soon, what would I most want to do, and who would I most want to spend time with?”
All of this leads us to Hexagram 56: The Wanderer/Traveling. The Sun entered the fire sign of Leo today. This hexagram is associated with this beginning portion of Leo and also the last stretch of Cancer we experienced in recent days.*
The hexagram image is a fire on a mountain. Fires here don’t linger long and move on quickly to find another fuel source, which represents traveling/wandering,
Now that Leo season has begun, traveling might be on our minds. But R.L. Wing reminds us that traveling “is primarily a state of mind, yet it leads the traveler into very real spaces.”
When you are in situations that you know won’t last long, you won’t be able to change your surroundings much – and your surroundings shouldn’t change you.
As Wing says: “The traveler should hold to modest goals and behave with good grace and propriety. People on the move are moving targets, therefore caution and reserve should be exercised in your dealings with those you meet on the way.”
These periods of being a wanderer are a good time for an “inner voyage” where you explore new ideas, career opportunities, and experiences.
Maybe there are certain areas in your life where you are perpetually a wanderer, so as to get the substance while avoiding drama and potential entanglements with others.
However you prefer to travel, whether farflung adventures, a state of mind, or staycations, Marion Woodman’s insight is worth pondering: “But if you travel far enough, one day you will recognize yourself coming down to meet yourself. And you will say – yes.”
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*The 64 hexagrams of the I Ching, an ancient Chinese text, are arranged along the ecliptic (the celestial equator) in Human Design. In astrology there are 12 zodiac signs along the ecliptic, so there are 5.3 hexagrams per zodiac sign. I’m contemplating these hexagrams as a way to engage with astrology, the I Ching, and Jungian psychology.
References:
The I Ching Workbook by R.L. Wing
The Case Against Travel from The New Yorker
Reconsidering the Staycation from The New York Times
