Walking Each Other Home

For some years, I’ve been aware of the expression, ‘At the end of the day, we are all just walking each other home’. It always fills my heart with sweetness to think of the tenderness this image evokes.

This week the phrase entered my mind again and lodged itself there, happily taking up residence. The image brings joy and comfort to me and makes me say, ‘Yes! This is how I want to live!’ I want to walk, and be walked, home. I want to love and care for others – ideally regardless of who they are, although I admit to needing some further work in that regard. I want to be part of the interwoven fabric that holds us all to each other in love. I am part of that fabric; we all are.

These words were first said by Ram Dass, the spiritual teacher known for his vast heart. I never met him in person, but those who have been in his presence describe the powerful field of love that surrounded him. He dedicated his life to teaching from that heart, and he changed those who met him. Truly living from one’s heart can do that.

Ram Dass is also known for summing up how to live ‘a good life’ in three short sentences:

Love everyone.

Serve everyone.

Remember God.

It doesn’t get much clearer than that!

I was inspired to buy the last book he wrote before he died at the age of 88, appropriately called, Walking Each Other Home. This book is a stunning meditation on living and dying, co-written by his life-long friend Mirabai Bush. At the end of his life, his mind and heart were as strong as ever, although his words and expression were slowed by the aphasia and partial paralysis he was left with after a stroke twenty years ago.  

I commend this book. It is a gentle, wise conversation about living, loving, and dying, and an encouragement to face everything life brings us, including our death, without fear, and with heart.

We have the opportunity to walk each other home every day, to notice when someone needs attention, encouragement, befriending, support, or companionship. Also, to notice when we need these things and to accept them graciously when offered.

Walking each other home is to love, serve, and remember.

Do you have experiences of being walked home? What did it feel like?

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