How big is your world? Where are the edges? Why is it that no matter where you are, you’re always at the center?

The human experience is a fascinating thing. You go along minding your own business in the place you call home until one day something changes and you find yourself somewhere else.

You don’t think about your home turf the same after you spend some time somewhere else. The kind of perspective you gain by looking homeward from afar is invaluable.

Think about the strange continuum between the commonality of every person’s day-to-day life and the vast variety of cultural overlays that define us.

We all communicate. But how many different languages are there? Shelter is a universal need. Can you even begin to name all of the different types of domiciles that folks sleep in around the world? Cold weather means warm clothes. How many kinds of coats are there?

In my opinion, the biggest one is food. The need for sustenance is right up there with air and water and is a constant from our first day to our last. But when it comes to what we eat or how we eat it, the various cultures around our big beautiful world may as well may as well be inhabiting different planets.

No matter where you go, and no matter how odd the food may be, it’s someone’s idea of normal, daily fare. To put the shoe on the other foot, what you put on your table seems perfectly normal to you, but to a traveller from a distant land it would likely come across as totally baffling.

And yet we all manage to get by. For far too many indulgent Westerners, it’s to excess; for far too many of the marginalized, it’s near starvation. For the majority in the middle, it’s with some degree of attention to heath and well-being, or at the very least, a well-stocked fridge.

That’s why the term ‘home-cooking’ is such an alluring phrase. Our microbiome, (those billions upon billions of bacteria and enzymes that convert what we eat into what we do), is as rooted to our home turf as a trees roots are to the earth.

When we encounter a new diet on the inside and a new environment on the outside it can throw us for a loop. So what’s the best way to stay on balance? Well, take it slow and go with the flow.

Jus take it one bite at a time. Don’t overindulge, but don’t forego trying anything new. Put yourself in the mindset of a permanent adjustment and see where it leads. Like the legend on my High School class ring read: “Expand your Horizons!”

This week’s note comes to you from Chartre sur le Loir, a small village in the middle of France. Love and fate has brought me here to honor the 80th birthday of my darling Isabelle’s dad. From this quiet vantage point in the heart of Old Europe it’s clear how every house and home is at the center of its own universe.

Standing on a centuries-old stone bridge brings to life the thought that while the ancient world was vast, the far corners of our current world are closer all the time. With modern methods of travel and the fibers of the internet reaching further and further our idea of home takes on a new meaning.

May your heart be centered and your home filled with love!

Yours from the New Horizons of the Old World! Much love till next Monday!

M+

Mark Metz
Director of the Dance First Association
Publisher of Conscious Dancer Magazine