November/December 2026
Qigong & Mindfulness Newsletter

Journeying Home: Our Life’s Path?

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Dear Friends:  This fall I have been beckoned back ‘Home’ in more ways than one, including a 50th high school class reunion and a weekend with friends from my freshman year in college.  Both were wonderful experiences serving to remind me of who I ‘had been’, all those decades ago,  and also how that very same person is still who you get today, albeit a bit slower and more forgetful!

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I grew up in a small town in central Wisconsin (Port Edwards) and it’s still this childhood home that comes to mind fondly when I think about ‘coming home’.  But the deeper yearning or ‘homesickness’ I feel pulling at my soul goes beyond a physical house or family unit.

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In the Everything Belongs podcast, Father Richard Rohr speaks about the spiritual path that winds away from and toward one’s true home:   

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“The first going out from home we can say is the creation of the ego. While this is a necessary creating, it is also the creating of a separation. It’s taking myself as central. We probably need to do that, at least until we reach middle age. But then we need to allow what we’ve created to be uncreated.  When we can say “yes” to that uncreation and still be happy, we’ve done our work. My true self is in God and not in what I’ve created.

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In the metaphor of life as a journey, I think it’s finally about coming back home to where we started. As I approach death, I’m thinking about that a lot. I think the best way to describe what’s coming next is not “I’m dying,” but “I’m finally going home.” I don’t know what it’s like yet, but in my older age I really trust that it is home. I don’t know where that trust comes from or even what home is like, but I know I’m not going to someplace new. I’m going to all the places I’ve known deeply. They’re pointing me to the big deep, the Big Real. I do think homecoming is what it’s all about.” 

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One of the books I am reading this fall, “Coming Home to Embodied Awakening” by Master Mingtong Gu reminds us that our body is not a machine to be fixed, but rather the place you come home to. He teaches, “In a world driven by speed, digital noise and constant striving, we have become exiles in our own skin…searching outside ourselves for peace.  But the silence we seek is not found in escaping the body; it is found in returning to it.”

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On our travels my husband and I had the pleasure of attending a mini-retreat at the Chi Center and practicing Qigong with Master Mingtong.  It was both an honor and a blessing to be in the presence of someone who is fully alive and present, and who creates space that invites us to ‘come home’ to our true selves.

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As you think about the holidays ahead, I invite you to join me in keeping two things in mind:

1. How might I create welcoming spaces for friends and family to gather and be fully present with one another?

2. What self-care practices will help me stay connected to my true self this season?

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Blessings on your journey home,

Sandy Salvo

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P.S.  Watch for info on an in-person Qi and Tea Gathering that I am planning for the end of December as a time for deep connection with one another.

Sandy Salvo