And if you make it back home, chances are you will be bruised and battered by then. You will have to pick the pieces of yourself that dropped as you rolled with the punches at every turn and twist of the path that always stares at your back, laughing at your idea of having left it behind.

One may ask over and over again: “What is the point?”, and get the same answer every time: “The point is whatever is in front of you”. That is the prize for which you paid the toll, and that is why everything is the same. Your only freedom is choosing what to make of it. You can either be amazed and thankful at the sight of an ordinary pebble, or disillusioned and resentful in front of a palace made of gold and gemstones.

Such is the difference between being at home and being stranded, an orphan on the very planet that gave you life. Seen from this angle, it is not a bold claim to say that practically everything you have learned is a lie. The worst kind of lie, too. The one that attaches itself, like a parasite, to nuggets of truth. It distorts those truths. It bends them to its will, turns them into a mockery of its beautiful essence, feeds on them with unquenchable thirst and obscene gluttony. It turns princesses into slaves and princes into murderers, good people into heartless bystanders, children into soldiers.

It is me, and you, and everybody. We always say “people” when speaking of others. We are that excruciatingly dumb.

We are the ones who sacrifice everything on the altar of self-importance. Not “people”. It is us: you, them, me.

That is, until we come back home.

Home is that place where you have lost everything you thought you had to defend, except for your world –that fractal universe that travels with you every step of the way–. It is that place outside your country, your family, your circle of friends, your ideas, your emotions. It is the only place that exists truly outside of you, instead of just being an echo of your projections. And, happily, it is that place to where you can always come back. It doesn’t even matter if you are not alive anymore. You can always come back home.

Home is, indeed, where the heart is. It is that sublime, hidden spot where truth always remains true, where every man is a king and every woman a queen, and every child a child. And they are all warriors, and they are all travelers. The universe will never stop challenging you, but when you are home, no one can come in that is not invited.

See? That is the difference.

We have been Dreaming this Dream of Seenergy for decades. We have walked, and crawled, and run and flown for many, many miles –as the black bird of freedom flies–. Why? What is the point? Well, because it is home, and it is right in front of us. We laugh and dance as we pick the pieces of ourselves that fell, and heal our wounds and bruises as best we can. We will never be entirely clean. No one is. But our true Dream is having nothing left to defend, and so we are complete and ready to come back home every single day of our existence.

If you are true, you have a place at the table. Come on in. Jump in the stream of gleaming, cool turquoise water and climb up that waterfall. That arch, just beyond the canopy of the trees that bend to gather the moisture of the river and listen to its song, is the doorway. Can you see it? Isn’t it beautiful? We are not here to change the world. The world is just as it is supposed to be. We are here to come back home.

That is what changing the world really means.

I know you’re tired, but come, this is the way – Rumi