Nomadic Belonging — Nicole Meline

I have always been fascinated by the tradition of pilgrimage—a journey shaped with intention but also intentionally open-ended, unsure of its geographic and spiritual twists. Open to possibility.

A time to make space in life for transformation, inspiration, redirection. To be disrupted, de-centered by the size and strangeness of the world, by artistry and traditions and flavors unimagined. To discover and explore deep strangeness. To be recognized, maybe even adopted, by another world. To feel unknown, even to ourselves, and then to feel our way back home with all senses ignited, and to know it for the first time. To be re-named. Revised. Revived.

My life has been shaped by such journeys—by stepping out of the familiar and routine to give time and space for fresh vision, for the heart to open, for attention to sharpen. To get a panoramic view of the map of my life at a given moment—to understand how past chapters have led to this, and where the future calls. To hear what the heart demands. We can find this kind of perspective in moments of prayerful mediation, on a yoga mat, or in an ecstatic sweat—here, now. But deep work, deep knowing, deep transformation can unfold over the course of a journey away from the lives and the work we’re building, so we can return—or swerve—more fully ourselves.

Monks and saints talk of ‘thin places,’ where the borders between heaven and earth get hazy. Earth that’s long-soaked in a tangle of prayer and art, the air still thick with it. Places that vibrate higher, that elevate us to the best intentions that have been whispered into their sky and sea and soil for centuries.

I have dreamed of crafting journeys to these places for a tribe that becomes family along the way. Thoughtfully curated, creatively orchestrated, but spacious enough for the soul to wander, to expand. Adventures, feasts, art, wandering, service, and sweat, breath, yoga, meditation, contemplation—guided visioning, journaling and creative challenges—and excessive time to walk along an ocean or stare up into the clouds.

Journeys that weave in the stories and story-tellers of a place, its artisans, its ways of spreading a table, and rich time alongside visionaries and peacemakers who are reaching into its past, reaching into the margins, and creating its future.

Journeys that bring us home to the radical heart of ourselves. That root us in joy, however the road unfolds.