You mean a grasshopper HASN'T saved your life?
A return, and a new direction for How to Go Home
Hi, friends,
Here are some things that have saved my life over the years:
Grasshoppers
A hummingbird
The story Parzival
A single Pacific wave
Aphrodite
A night on a hill on Dartmoor
What do I mean when I say these things “saved my life”?
That’s hard to answer. The answer is about imagination, and trust, and the deeper, more beautiful reality that cradles the world we walk through every day.
It’s hard to put into words, but I’m excited to try.
What I’m trying to say is, hello! And I’ve missed writing to you! And this newsletter is taking a new turn!
When I started writing How to Go Home, the “home” I was returning to was England; the journey I was returning from was an 11-year alchemical (/insane) period of living in dozens of homes on multiple continents.
Well. I’m settled now. My books are under one roof, for the first time in 13 years. They’re even on shelves.
And now, there’s a deeper homecoming at work.
Homecoming to the imagination itself.
Which is a place.
Which is the home of life-saving grasshoppers and stories and waves and poems and the language of lights you sometimes see on a hill in the forest in the dead of night.
Which is our birthright.
Which is the only hope.
I hope you’ll join me on this journey to understand what the imagination is, what the imaginal realm is, how humans have always accessed it, and how some cultures got blocked from it.
There’s more information about this new direction here, and below. Otherwise, stay tuned every Thursday at 4pm GMT/11am ET/8am PT.
Love,
xx Ellie
What is How to Go Home?
A weekly newsletter about imagination, published on Thursdays at 4pm GMT.
The newsletters will include essays and reflections, practical tips for accessing the imaginal realm, writing tips, conversations with thinkers and artists, and more
At present, all content on this Substack is free to all subscribers, though if you want to support my work, I’m enormously grateful to all those who are able to pay for a subscription, as a form of donation