A candidate for soul initiation knows what she has taken on. She’s preparing to die in order to be reborn. She must abandon her old home to set out for her new home. She longs for the journey but is understandably terrified by the prospect.

I watched ravens and clouds, jotted random thoughts in my journal, but had no meaningful insights. A day and a night passed. I began to give up.

Before you were born, I went on a journey that would take me around the world completely, a spherical, three-dimensional journey. A journey of dirt and blood. A journey of taste and bodily sensation. A journey of texture.

Our globalized world lures us to crave more. The culture of “more” is a culture of not enough, accumulation and conquest, and sought but constantly deferred satiety. Every time we text message or update Instagram, researchers tell us that our brains loop in a dopamine cycle of neurological yearning.

...my home bordered the ‘other neighborhood,’ the one where the Fenians, the Papists, the Catholics lived. The ones I was afraid of. I had stones in my pocket to throw at them if ‘they’ came up ‘my’ street. So I sat on the curb with my friends, waiting for ‘them’ to come.