Having New Eyes

Katy Pelchy
Having New Eyes
Landscapes of the Sacred

“Traveling is a fool’s paradise. We owe to our first journeys the discovery that place is nothing.” In a sense, Emerson is right. The sacred place never guarantees a thing. Going to Jerusalem does not automatically grant the pilgrim wisdom or zeal. “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes,” wrote Marcel Proust, “but in having new eyes.”

While I agree that, at times, a place’s significance means nothing, I also avidly believe that traveling has worth far beyond what people could ever expect. Traveling causes people to realign their axis mundi, and in doing such they learn and grow both spiritually and personally. There is no equivalent to traveling. You cannot get the same experience sitting in your backyard as sailing in the open sea. There is simply no comparison. Traveling enriches the life and soul and opens the mind to different cultures, beliefs, and entirely different worlds.

I do, however, agree that “the real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” THIS is the point of traveling. One cannot help but have new eyes when in view is something completely new and unheard of. A person’s axis mundi is unlikely to be opened and expanded when in familiar surroundings. Therefore, while traveling is not imperative to discovery, it cannot help but aid it, for when exposed to completely alien habits, landscapes, and cultures, it is almost impossible to not have one’s eyes opened in the midst of discovery.