Join a community discovering how living lightly and deeply through seasonal practices of presence can heal both our scattered attention and our relationship with the living world. Because mending the world begins with mending our capacity to truly see it.
Do You Need the Whole World to Feel at Home
Published about 2 months ago • 3 min read
Within The One Who Loves All the Places We Cannot Be
"I want to live by the ocean, but also in the forest but also in the mountains but also in a big city but also in the countryside, you feel me."
Have you seen this quote around the web? It is attributed to no one, and it seems to resonate with everyone. I knew what it meant. There's something achingly honest about this confession that our hearts are too vast for any single landscape to contain. It's the cry of my soul standing at the edge of the Atlantic and feeling my spirit expand with the endless horizon, only to later find myself equally at home beneath the cathedral ceiling of ancient pines in Algonquin, or breathing deeply in the thin air of mountain tops of Norway that scrape the belly of clouds.
We are creatures of contradictions, drawn simultaneously to the pulse of urban streets and the profound quiet of rural meadows. The heart wants what it wants, and sometimes what it wants is everything.
The ocean calls to something primal within us, that ancient memory of where life began, in the salt and foam and endless rhythm of waves. Standing on a beach at dawn, watching the sun paint the water in shades of copper and gold, we feel connected to something larger than ourselves. The ocean is meditation in motion, a reminder that some forces are too powerful to resist, too beautiful to fully comprehend.
But then there are the forests, those green sanctuaries where light filters through leaves like stained glass, where every footstep on the forest floor is cushioned by centuries of fallen dreams. In the forest, we become smaller and somehow more significant at the same time. The trees whisper secrets we almost remember, and the air tastes of moss and possibility and time itself.
The mountains seduce us with their permanence, their refusal to compromise. They stand as monuments to endurance, teaching us that some things are worth the climb, that perspective is earned through struggle. From a mountain peak, the world spreads below like a map of all our possibilities, and we understand, however briefly, our place in the grand design.
Yet for all the majesty of nature's theatres, there's something intoxicating about the city's electric energy—the way a metropolis pulses with human ambition and creativity, how strangers brush shoulders on sidewalks carrying their secret universes. Cities are symphonies of possibility, places where art galleries neighbour dive bars, where food trucks serve cuisines from six continents on a single block. In cities, we are reminded that we are social creatures, that our individual stories gain meaning when woven into the larger tapestry of human experience.
And still, the countryside beckons with its pastoral promise—rolling hills dotted with farmhouses, fields that stretch toward horizons unmarked by skyscrapers, night skies unpolluted by neon where stars shine with prehistoric clarity. The countryside offers space to breathe, to think, to remember who we are when stripped of the noise and hurry that define so much of modern life.
Perhaps the yearning for all these places simultaneously isn't greed. It's wisdom. It's the recognition that we are complex beings requiring different nourishments for different seasons of our souls. Sometimes we need the ocean's vastness to remind us of the scope of our dreams. Sometimes we need the forest's intimacy to help us listen to our inner voice. Sometimes we need the mountain's challenge to test our strength, the city's energy to fuel our ambition, or the countryside's peace to restore our equilibrium.
The geography of the heart knows no borders, respects no single climate or terrain. We are not meant to be contained by one landscape any more than we are meant to be defined by one dream, one love, one version of ourselves. We are vast enough to hold appreciation for crashing waves and quiet meadows, for neon-lit streets and starry skies, for the solitude of wilderness and the communion of crowded squares.
Maybe the answer isn't choosing. Perhaps it's accepting that we are citizens of every landscape that moves us, residents of every place that makes us feel alive. We can carry the ocean's rhythm in our heartbeat, the forest's wisdom in our breath, the mountain's strength in our spine, the city's pulse in our step, and the countryside's peace in our smile.
After all, home isn't just a place—it's a feeling. And sometimes, that feeling requires an entire world to contain it.
One’s inner landscape is more than a locale provided by imagination. It is a medley of memory, a conjuring of images, a projection of hope, and a topography of self.
Understanding This One Idea Changes the Way You See Your Life - Mel Robbins
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Mend The World Within Your Reach
Join a community discovering how living lightly and deeply through seasonal practices of presence can heal both our scattered attention and our relationship with the living world. Because mending the world begins with mending our capacity to truly see it.
