Soul Tribes

Sometimes I come across a place, a person or even an experience that I know, with pure but inexplicable intuition, is meant to be a part of my life.

It's a phenomenon I think might happen to us all - certainly to most people I've asked. It's pure gut feeling: of coming home, of comfort and of familiarity. It's immediate and powerful and cannot be ignored.

It doesn't happen often, but it's never let me down. The first time I flopped down on the grass in Exeter, I knew that was where I would go to university. When I walked through the doors of the Summertime office, I knew I was supposed to work there. It's happened with one or two people, who are now treasured pieces of my heart. I think they will know who they are.

Sysperia once passed along a beautiful piece of imagery: she told me that our souls travel in packs through time, that each of us has a soul tribe. Today I think I met one of my tribe on a bus journey across town.

I hope, for once, that my intuition had let me down, because I didn't say a word to him. We smiled at each other, I felt the jolt of familiarity, I carried on walking. I could see him playing the same game I'm playing on the PSP, I could hear what I think was one of my favourite songs on his headphones.

Through shyness and embarrassment, I stayed quiet, though my instincts told me I had no need to. There's a lesson in this, one I want to record for myself: it's long past time to deal with the reasons for my timidity. The irony of which will not be lost on those members of my soul tribe who know where my journey was taking me.