Wings: How Traveling the World Freed My Soul to Fly

By Kathy Wright and Brooke Powers

In WINGS, Kathy Wright, shares her deeply personal story, from traveling the bubbling brooks, muddy mountains, and masterpieces of the world to her journey through ovarian cancer. She beautifully illustrates that our journey doesn’t end just because we come home. Instead, we can learn how to stand in the uncertainty of each day. It is a book that you can read from beginning to end or one that you can open randomly to a single chapter. This book will inspire readers of all ages to find their joy, seek their truth, and allow their souls to fly.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Jun 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9798765239056

Book preview

Copyright © 2023 Kathy Wright.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means,

graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or

by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the

author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author

and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of

the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of

people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

Balboa Press

A Division of Hay House

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.balboapress.com

844-682-1282

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in

this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views

expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the

views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use

of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical

problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The

intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you

in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any

of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right,

the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are

models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Interior Graphics/Art Credit: Brooke Powers

ISBN: 979-8-7652-3907-0 (sc)

ISBN: 979-8-7652-3906-3 (hc)

ISBN: 979-8-7652-3905-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023910271

Balboa Press rev. date: 06/16/2023

CONTENTS

Dedication

Preface

Chapter 1:     Rules for the Journey

Chapter 2:     Curiosity

Chapter 3:     Rituals

Chapter 4:     Faith

Chapter 5:     Connections

Chapter 6:     Honoring Those Who Came Before

Chapter 7:     Giving and Receiving

Chapter 8:     Magic

Chapter 9:     Power of Self

Chapter 10:   Truth Seeker

Chapter 11:   Resilience

Chapter 12:   Gratitude

Chapter 13:   The Power of Nature

Chapter 14:   Sacred Moments

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

DEDICATION

To all you travelers and explorers out there whether you travel by foot, plane, train, car, bus, bike, or chair, you are my people.

Also, to all the people whose simple gestures of kindness were often underestimated, I thank each and everyone of you who has touched my life with love and gentleness. You may not even be aware, but I have expanded because of you. You have been seen and deeply appreciated.

PREFACE

All of the travel stories shared in this book took place before my cancer diagnosis. My diagnosis was made in May of 2020, during the time when the COVID-19 pandemic had shut down the world. My world further shut down as I reckoned with a disease I’d never thought I’d face. As I grappled with my new existence, I collected travel vouchers for all the trips that I had planned but would be unable to take at this time. As I sought a new purpose and a new direction in my life, I recognized the need to share my stories from a new perspective.

I sat in quiet meditation with my diagnosis, just as the whole world sat contemplating the meaning of living, of existence. Now three years later, as my book is being published and as I stand vibrant, healthy, and alive, I pull out my travel vouchers once again. I am ready for adventure. I carry a desire to explore more of the world, other cultures, and—always—myself in an even deeper way. I fluff out my wings, ready to soar once more. I step off that cliff of uncertainty into a world of infinite possibilities.

I began to recognize more about myself as I learned more about who I am. I am a traveler, an explorer, a sailor, a hiker, an adventurer, a teacher, a yogi, a midwife, a scientist, a writer, a mother, and the list could go on. Throughout my life, there was always something to experience, not just to see. I realized that I didn’t just want to watch or read about it, I wanted to be in it fully—to Experience it with a capital E. I wanted to hear it, smell it, taste it, touch it, absorb and learn it all. It became obvious to me that these journeys were the foundation of my spiritual awakenings.

This was not something I knew at the beginning. It was a slow dawning of awareness. I thought my only spiritual journeys were those labeled as such, those with Deepak Chopra, Don Miguel Ruiz, Jorge Delgado, Caroline Myss, Joe Dispenza, Tony Robbins, Oprah Winfrey, Jean Houston, and the list could go on. Instead, I came to know many powerful shamans and teachers who were among what we would call everyday people. When I traveled with an open heart and a noticing presence, they appeared everywhere and always at the perfect moment.

The first of such teachers that I finally recognized was a bus mate riding from the JFK Airport to central NY City. I was in NY for my brother-in-law’s fiftieth birthday celebration, a minireunion of my family and his, a joyful event. I had invited a man I’d been dating for a while, but just that morning, I had received a last-minute email saying that the traffic would be too bad and he wasn’t going to come. I was hurt, angry, sad, and totally miserable. That was the energy with which I climbed aboard the bus and sat next to my perfect guru.

Instead of buying into my miserable energy, he stayed in his. He was pure joy. He continued to point out the beauty of the day, how lucky I was to be visiting now, and what I should look for as I walked on to my hotel. He drew me in, and my joy began to grow. I let go of sadness. I literally skipped my way to my hotel, breathing in the incredible magnificence that can only be New York City. I carried my birthday angel wings, ones I had purchased at Disney that I wore to many birthday parties. I planned to wear them to my brother-in-law’s party. Now I felt as if they had been placed upon my back by that man’s powerful energy. That day, it became obvious to me how we could influence people with our actions, yet be completely unaware of that power and influence. Every day, our small words and actions send messages that can change a person forever. We have tremendous power to change ourselves, the world to soar, and to fly.

Learning came once more in the form of another surprising teacher. I sat with my youngest brother on the back of the boat in Saint Croix. We were talking about our mother, with whom both of us had a difficult relationship. We struggled to feel loved by her. We struggled with wondering if we had done and were enough. We each sought answers in our own way. I thought she favored him. After all, he was a male, her son, her favorite. Meanwhile, I was someone she saw as competition, her mirror image but with youth on my side.

You know, he said, she calls you her child with the biggest wings. I’d thought she didn’t know or understand me at all, and yet she recognized the true essence of me even better than I did. She saw the explorer and adventurer in me. She saw the seeker of Experience. She saw my need to fly.

I’ve come to realize that what I once saw as two paths, one traveling the world, the other seeking my true self, were actually intrinsically bound. Never did that become more blatantly obvious than when I lay in that emergency room bed and received the diagnosis of ovarian cancer. My first questioning thought was, Am I going to die? My second was, I wonder why I picked this journey for myself.

I began to look back over all the journeys I’d had, both within the world and within myself. I looked at my cancer journey, and I began to see the real journey. I recognized how all these journeys intertwined, folded back on one another, flourished, and enhanced one another. None of them stood alone, and each contributed to the greatest journey I was to have. I was able to discern the qualities that helped me along the way. Within the chapters of this book, I’ll share them with you. I open my hand to offer each to you as the gift it was to me.

image%201.jpg

Chapter 1

RULES FOR THE JOURNEY

28004.jpg

S INCE I WAS VERY YOUNG, I always knew that I was a born explorer, a journeyer. I was lucky that my early years of growing up took place on eighteen acres of land in northeastern Ohio, a land full of wildflowers and forests, small creeks, and strawberry fields.

In the summer, my parents would rent an RV, an affordable way to travel with their four children at that time. We traveled east to the Atlantic Ocean and west to the Pacific and back. We’d park in campgrounds and mall parking lots. Like a snail, we carried our ready-made home on our backs. As children, it was not just play. Although, for me, it felt like it. Remember, these were the days way before Google Maps and phones with GPS. We were required to read maps, plan the route, decide what to visit, to learn about where we were going. I was given a map and looked for the roads we were on and the ones we could take to our destinations. On the maps were often markings highlighting sights along the way worth visiting. State capitals were marked with a star, and other information about the state was recorded. As the oldest, I was also charged with entertaining my siblings so we could endure the hours of driving. We drove from Ohio to the western coast of the United States where we hunted for whales breaching in the Pacific Ocean as we hugged the coastline on the incredible, scenic Highway 1. We visited caverns in New Mexico that darkened to complete blackness as we headed back home to Ohio across Texas and north. We continued our travels to the eastern coast of the United States where we stopped at Plymouth Rock and toured the artistic sites of Provincetown, Massachusetts. The skills that I learned as a child have carried me through many moments. The maps may look different and my learning may take on a different quality, but in essence, I see life as a path that is continuously unfolding in front of me.

As an adult, my travel horizons expanded, and I traveled to all the continents. I touched the shores of Vladivostok in Siberia, Russia; dove in the amazing coral reefs of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef; climbed the mountains of Bhutan to light temple incense; and knelt in wonder at the altar of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. I have watched the sunrise lighting the icebergs of Antarctica into crystalline castles, and I’ve watched the sunset colors creating magic over the African savannah. I’ve hiked to the fin du monde, the end of the world, at the tip of South America, and I’ve experienced the wonder of the powerful waterfalls of Iguazu. Each majestic moment added to the foundation of remembering who I was and who I wanted to become. Each added strength and qualities that would come to sustain me to one of my greatest journeys yet to come.

As I set out to write this book, I found myself asking, What exactly is a journey? According to Webster’s Dictionary, it’s defined as travel from one place to another. However, if you delve a bit deeper, it is also defined as a passage from one stage to another, perhaps even calling it a transformation. Throughout my life, any travel I have done includes both definitions. Immersing myself in the culture, the people and the spirit of the country or place that I visited became an essential part. Often I feel I’m being drawn somewhere because there is something that I’m supposed to learn.

Another question I’ve been pondering is, What defines a traveler, a journeyer, a pilgrim? One of the most powerful scenes in Emilio Estevez’s movie, The Way, is a heated and emotional discussion about what makes a pilgrim. The movie chronicles a group of people hiking the Camino de Santiago in northern Spain, which is often also called a pilgrimage because originally it was a religious journey. What the question in the movie asks is, if the only way to be a pilgrim was to hike the five-hundred-plus miles on foot with all your belongings on your back in a big backpack? In the context of the movie, could you also be considered a pilgrim if you hiked the trail in shorter pieces instead of all at once? What if you only hiked on the weekends or even in different years? Could you bike it? Could you ride a donkey? Drive a car? A wheelchair? Have someone else carry your bags? Or could you ride your chair at home and travel via books, movies, and stories? When did you become a pilgrim? What defined this pilgrim?

I’ve come to believe that the moment you decide a journey is a journey, it is a journey. And you travel it by any means that draw you. So I say to you all reading this that as soon as you picked up this book, you became a journeyer, a traveler, an adventurer, and yes, a pilgrim. I believe you’ve picked up this book because you are meant to be here with me, to take a journey of the soul. There’s wisdom that draws you along.

Even being a lifelong seasoned traveler did not prepare me for the unexpected journey I took in 2020, one I had never planned for or imagined. I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. My journeys went from outward to inward as I navigated my diagnosis and treatment. All that I had learned from where I’d traveled before became part of what I know and who I am and how I survived and thrived during those difficult months.

Over my years of traveling, without really noticing it, I honed a set of travel rules that helped me along the way. And once I was diagnosed, I incorporated these travel rules into my cancer journey. I’ve learned that a journey can take many shapes and forms, and it is my hope that sharing my experiences with you will help you find your own way. So, fellow travelers and pilgrims, no matter what journey you are on, may these rules offer you reassurance and guidance.

Rule 1: How to Get Ready

Getting ready for my journey was not as simple as I’d thought it would be. I realized that it was often connected to achieving a goal. Then I wondered, what’s a goal? Again, sounds so simple. We seem to have some preconceived belief in what it means. We get asked, What do you want to do after high school? Go to college? Find a job? Travel? Get married? Have babies? What’s your career