The Traveler's Practice: Journey and Journal

The best trips continue long after we’ve returned home: in memory, in the stories we tell, and in the ways we reorient our lives. But how do we catch in words the light above the Seine, or the way the California coastline opens us up? How do we turn sights into lasting insights and use the landscape around us to unlock the treasures within? By keeping a travel journal, we can deepen our experiences and increase present-moment awareness. Writing can help us become our truest selves.

Join renowned writers Pico Iyer and Janet Fitch for an intimate exploration of your inner and outer worlds through the lens of travel writing. Pico and Janet will use readings, periods of silence, exercises, and spirited discussions to explore how to catch the smells of a souq in Morocco or the spaciousness of a Colorado mountain, and how to give life to the way they make you feel. If travel is recorded vividly and searchingly, it can be a way of waking up the senses and bringing us back to our deepest home. Invoking writers such as Annie Dillard, Henry Miller, Leonard Cohen, Anais Nin, and a chorus of others to inspire the group, you can discover how every trip can be a kind of transport and how writing about your travels can be the first step toward transformation.

To register, go to www.esalen.org