Traveling Teeth Follow Rumors of Home…

Hiro Boga | January 4th, 2010

A couple of weeks ago, I was at the dentist’s office for an annual checkup and cleaning. As the dentist examined my mouth, probing my gum line with the delicate precision of an ant in a sugar bowl, he said: “Your teeth are moving.”

I mumbled: “Mrrtgwoof?”

“Teeth do that, you know,” he said. “You must have had braces when you were younger.”

I nodded as best I could and he continued cheerfully: “Teeth travel back to where they came from. That’s why, as you get older, the gaps between your teeth get wider.”

The rest of the conversation—in which he described the various “procedures” he could perform to close the gaps between my teeth—remains hazy in my memory. (Which must also be traveling homeward, since the gaps in it are growing!)

As I drove home, I ran my tongue in wonder over my miraculous teeth. My teeth know where they came from! And through forty years of forcible displacement, they’ve remained doggedly determined to get back to where they belong.

Everything answers the call to home.

Teeth. And spawning salmon. Birds that fly thousands of miles each spring to return home from their southern migration. Monarch butterflies. Stars. Sea lions, bats, ants trudging in military formation, and pods of whales.

We humans do too, although our lives are so noisy these days that the call of home can dwindle to the faintest whisper, inaudible to all but the most attentive ear.

That call can emerge as restlessness, emptiness, a longing for something as-yet unnamed.

We work harder, or party more. We hang onto relationships that leave our hearts blighted, or we buy stuff . . . However blindly, each of us is trying to echolocate our way home.

Home is our soul’s vibration resonating in our bodies—that unique, complex, perfect hum of heart and presence that’s so familiar, we ignore it because we think it has to be something more exotic. Something esoteric—an angelic choir; an epiphany on the road to Damascus. Something hard-to-get, as sexily out of reach as Johnny Depp.

So we go searching. In teachers and classes and books. In spiritual practices. In our spouses, our children—everywhere but ourselves. Like my traveling teeth, we follow every whisper and rumor of home.

Until, one day, exhausted from the search, buttering a piece of toast or listening idly to a song on the radio–or sitting in a dentist’s chair–we click into that home frequency that vibrates in our cells, in our breath, in our beating hearts. And we remember … we are home. WE are home.

Category: Qualities of Soul  

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30 Responses to “Traveling Teeth Follow Rumors of Home…”

  1. Square-Peg Karen (@) says:
    January 4, 2010 at 12:45 pm

    Yes! This has been much of my 2009 journey, home to HOME (self). Hiro, thanks for this – so beautifully worded. It flew straight to my heart.

  2. elizabeth (@) says:
    January 4, 2010 at 12:52 pm

    I was restless pretty much ever since I started working .. and this past year I finally realized why – it was because my soul was calling me home, but I was looking for it in all the wrong places.

    But yes, what Karen said. This post flew straight into my heart. Thank you.
    elizabeth´s last post … a day of snow My ComLuv Profile

  3. Bridget (@) says:
    January 4, 2010 at 12:52 pm

    I love this. I love this understanding that we are always making our way home and also always already the home we are.

    Everything leads to there.

    Also, I had a bunch of ligaments cut so that my teeth wouldn’t move back. My teeth used to look like train tracks through the andes. So, I’m hopeful that they stay in their new homes, in my mouth. :)
    Bridget´s last post … Observation: The Infinite. The Finite. The Edit. My ComLuv Profile

  4. Kim says:
    January 4, 2010 at 1:18 pm

    Amazing! And what a beautiful post. There’s no place like home. Thank you!

  5. susy joy says:
    January 4, 2010 at 2:00 pm

    This touched my heart – and soul – thank you, Hiro for your beautifully words of truth.

  6. Kim Mailhot says:
    January 4, 2010 at 2:09 pm

    I needed this today. I also sent a link to it for a friend show needs this today. The world really needs this today. I think. And thank you for providing it.
    Kim Mailhot´s last post … The First Monday in 2010… My ComLuv Profile

  7. Lilly says:
    January 4, 2010 at 2:11 pm

    My formerly braced teeth have wandered a lot back home too, and now I don’t feel quite as badly about this happening after reading your post! That was really beautiful.

  8. whollyjeanne says:
    January 4, 2010 at 2:12 pm

    developmental psychology theories have long held that eventually we return to the 8-10 year old we once were. home. i’m so into embodiment (at last) – love it that our bodies return to home, too. and to think of teeth . . . the gatekeepers of our internal bodies returning to their earlier selves. it makes my head hurt and my heart sigh with smiling pleasure.
    whollyjeanne´s last post … burn My ComLuv Profile

  9. Rebecca Leigh (@) says:
    January 4, 2010 at 3:17 pm

    Oh gosh Hiro,

    Breathless making stuff.

  10. Puma says:
    January 4, 2010 at 3:42 pm

    Perfectly said, (as usual!) :0) and couldn’t have come at a more appropriate and much needed time.
    Blessings and love to you.

  11. Julie Stuart says:
    January 4, 2010 at 4:13 pm

    Beautiful post, Hiro. I love the thought of being called home, that we are always being called home. Like the birds, the whales and butterflies. That rhythm feels so effortless and perfect.
    Julie Stuart´s last post … Happy happy. Merry merry. My ComLuv Profile

  12. Gina says:
    January 4, 2010 at 8:32 pm

    Hiro,
    Thank you for this post. I always look forward to reading your insightful words. They always seem to make me smile :).

    I had a chat with my sister today – she gets depressed at times and has a hard time being alone. I forwarded your newsletter to her – it’s no coincidence I received this today.
    Many blessings!
    Gina´s last post … My New Year Goddess Planner Journey Continues….. My ComLuv Profile

  13. Marilyn says:
    January 5, 2010 at 1:08 am

    Love this post, thank you Hiro – loved sinking my teeth into it :) Wonderful to be reminded that we ARE home!
    Marilyn´s last post … Connecting with 2010 My ComLuv Profile

  14. Leila (@) says:
    January 5, 2010 at 2:08 am

    Beautiful story Hiro – made me smile, feel warm and comforted. We need someone to tell us stories which remind us of these things. Lovely, thank you!

    It also made me think about how you’ve spoking previously about us containing infinate possibilities within us and not without. It led me to think more about my desire to tap into my intuition and creative self and to trust that I have the answers as to how best to do that – follow my heart or nose and the rest will follow kind if thing! Yep pay closer attention to my soul joyfully waving or nudging me and saying ‘helloooo over here, over here!’

    Yes I love your emphasis on the simple things in life – the divine lies in those moments of buttering hot toast and not just in heightened moments of ecstasy!

    Thanks Hiro.

    x

  15. Erika Harris (@) says:
    January 5, 2010 at 4:08 am

    I’m not the least bit surprised, Hiro, that your dental chair morphed into a throne of the soul. Seeing things through your kaleidoscopic eyes enriches my days with each and every visit here.
    Erika Harris´s last post … An Invitation for Six Sensitives Ready To Live In More Power Than Ever Before My ComLuv Profile

  16. Larisa (@) says:
    January 6, 2010 at 6:49 pm

    Hi Hiro,

    I’m showing up here a bit late it seems. Ah well. Just wanted to say this post gave me some much needed perspective. I felt all warm and tingly and came home a bit more to myself as I read it.

    And, it reminded me of one of my favorite books (which I now want to revisit): All Sickness is Homesickness by Dianne Connelly. Perhaps you’ve read it?

    Thanks again!

  17. Leigh-Anne Tyson says:
    January 8, 2010 at 7:13 am

    I really resonate with this post today Hiro. We are home. Many years ago now I was studying Tai Chi with an excellent instructor who often reminded me that my body remembered (the muscles and the bones) and travelled with memories far older than my own consciousness of them. What you wrote about travelling teeth reminded me of this very idea. Thank you for this.

    much love!
    Leigh-Anne Tyson´s last post … excerpt from ‘Charlie Rivers’ My ComLuv Profile

  18. Jefffrey Luke says:
    January 8, 2010 at 6:39 pm

    Hiro,

    Love your site. This post really hit home, as most of us at some point in our life start looking for that place called home.

    Unfortunately our society is formulated to take on on a journey away from our center or home to a place we thought we ought to be. But after years of living an empty existence, hopefully we have that “aha” moment – and start swimming back upstream to the place we know we need to be.

    At 42, I have finally stated moving to that place I’ve always wanted to be.

    And it feels so good!

    Looking forward to more from you.
    Jefffrey Luke´s last post … "I harbor for good and bad, I permit to speak at every hazard, Nature without check with original…" My ComLuv Profile

  19. Emily-Sarah says:
    January 18, 2010 at 1:08 pm

    This is lovely!

  20. Darcy says:
    January 26, 2010 at 7:14 am

    “Home is our soul’s vibration resonating in our bodies—that unique, complex, perfect hum of heart and presence that’s so familiar, we ignore it because we think it has to be something more exotic.”

    Wow. An idea with which to sit and make friends. I put it where I could see it every day. Thank you.
    Darcy´s last post … Day 86: Recycling rags, or why I don’t give up My ComLuv Profile