The journey is my home.

The poet Muriel Rukeyser once wrote, “The journey is my home.”
In these few words, she unveils a truth both tender and eternal — that life itself is not a destination, but a path; that belonging is not found in a single place, but in the motion of the soul as it moves toward meaning. To one who understands this wisdom, every step, every trial, every uncertain crossing becomes sacred. Rukeyser, a poet of deep empathy and restless spirit, saw life not as a fixed dwelling, but as a constant unfolding — a pilgrimage of becoming. Her words call us to embrace impermanence, to find peace not in arrival, but in journeying itself.

The origin of this quote rests in Rukeyser’s lifelong search for truth through art, activism, and compassion. Born in 1913, she lived through war, injustice, and great social change, and yet her poetry never despaired. Instead, she walked through the world with open eyes, seeking connection amid chaos. To her, the journey was not an escape from home — it was home, for she understood that to live is to move, to change, to learn endlessly. Like the mystics of old, she grasped that one’s truest dwelling is not a place of walls and comfort, but the expanding horizon of the spirit.

In the time of the ancients, this same wisdom was spoken in other forms. The wanderer Odysseus, who longed for Ithaca, found that his trials at sea were not merely punishment but transformation. Each island he touched shaped him; each storm refined him. When he finally reached his homeland, he was no longer the man who left. His true home had been the journey itself — the voyage that carved wisdom into his heart. So it is with us all. We are not meant to stand still, for stagnation is the death of the soul. The universe itself is in motion — stars burn, rivers flow, hearts beat. To live rightly is to move in harmony with this eternal rhythm.

Rukeyser’s insight also carries a revolt against the human longing for permanence. We often seek to arrive — to find the perfect home, the perfect success, the perfect peace — and yet, when we reach those places, they dissolve like mist. The ancient Buddha taught that suffering arises from clinging to what must change. “The journey is my home” is thus a call to release that grasping. It reminds us that peace does not come from anchoring ourselves to things that fade, but from learning to dwell gracefully in motion. The wise do not seek rest from the road; they learn to rest on the road.

Consider the life of Ibn Battuta, the great traveler of the fourteenth century, who journeyed over seventy-five thousand miles across the known world. From the deserts of Africa to the palaces of China, he roamed endlessly, driven not by conquest but by wonder. When asked if he ever longed for home, he replied that every land, every stranger, every sunrise became part of his belonging. His home was not behind him — it was wherever his feet carried him. Like Rukeyser, he understood that a soul in motion gathers a thousand homes within it. The pilgrim who walks in openness never walks alone.

In this way, Rukeyser’s quote speaks not only of travel through the world, but of the inner journey — the lifelong voyage of learning, loving, failing, and rising again. For even those who never leave their town are travelers in time and spirit. Each day we cross unseen thresholds: from youth to age, from ignorance to wisdom, from fear to trust. The heart that can find home in these changes — that can say, “I belong in the becoming” — is the heart that truly knows peace.

So, my child of the moving world, take this teaching to heart: do not wait for home to be built; build it within your steps. Let each challenge be your teacher, each stranger your reflection, each dawn your beginning. When you find yourself lost, remember that to walk forward is to return to yourself. For as Rukeyser teaches, the journey itself — with all its beauty, pain, and wonder — is the home of the soul.

And when your road at last nears its end, you will see that there was never a single place called home — there was only the path, and your courage to walk it. Then you will understand what the poet meant: that those who live fully never wander; they belong to the journey, and in that belonging, they are forever home.