No Guru, No Method, No Teacher

On adventure, silence, and remembering the spring that lives inside

This picture was taken while hiking up Mount Sanitas on the summer solstice

Dear Seekers,
Welcome back.

I write this newsletter for those who crave a deeper connection—with themselves, with others, and maybe even with a God they can imagine but can’t quite believe in. People who know there’s something real in all this religion and spirituality stuff, but who also live in strange times. Times when science told us to grow up and get rational. And who are we to doubt science?

But the truth is, faith and science can coexist. Mystery and reason can live side by side. And that’s the space this newsletter explores.

I hope it encourages you to keep living the life of a seeker.

This week, I want to share a story from a time I was traveling in the West Bank. I spent ten weeks there, trying to reconnect with the Jesus of my youth—by

literally walking in his footsteps. I know that’s an odd, maybe even grandiose thing to do. But I was a travel writer, and that’s how I made sense of the world: by moving through it.

I hope you enjoy the story and the message it carries.

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Years ago, I hiked alone through a narrow canyon outside Jericho, in the West Bank. The air was sharp and dry. Fierce sun. My soaked shirt clung to my back. The deeper I walked into the wadi—a dry riverbed that only carries water after rain—the higher the canyon walls grew. Gravel sloughed off the cliffs and rained onto my head.

I felt a mixture of hope and loss. I didn’t have a clear reason for being there. And maybe that was the point. I was listening to something quiet but persistent. Not a voice—more like a slender golden thread. When I saw the trailhead sign, something in me said yes. This was a path once worn by pilgrims and mystics, carved over centuries by feet and prayer.

I was trying to understand what they knew. And misguided or not, I believed that walking their path might show me something I needed.

It was 2012. I had just finished walking the Jesus Trail from Nazareth to the Sea of Galilee. I was trying to reconnect with the open-hearted desert mystic of my youth. Trying to understand what still pulled me to his story.

I was also coming out of one of the lowest periods of my life—years of overmedication for depression. During that time, I barely left the house. I stopped writing. I stopped caring. This trip to Palestine was partly an assignment—for Newsweek and The New York Times—but also something more. I needed a resurrection. I needed a new story about myself. And there’s only one way to do that: listen to your soul, and live your way forward.

And so…I walked. The path twisted through sun-blasted stone. The heat became too much. My mind and body begged for shade, silence, relief. But I kept going. The canyon narrowed. More gravel came loose and rained down around me.

I knew that some of these wadis hid springs—oases where tamarisk and oleander bloomed in secret.

I nearly turned around.

Then I heard it: a trickle. Then a steady stream. I turned a corner and saw a spring pouring from the cliffside, clear and fast. Below it, a pool shimmered in the light, and from the pool, a narrow stream wound its way through tamarisk,

A wadi similar to the one I hiked in the West Bank

reeds, and blooming oleander. Bright green against sunburnt rock. Pink flowers swaying in the heat.

I hurried to the edge and dropped to my knees. I drank. The water tasted like stone. Like resurrection.

I set my feet into the pool. Pushed the reeds aside and cleared a space to sit. Dragonflies skimmed the surface. A breeze moved the branches. I listened. Let

This picture of me was taken in 2012 in Jericho after hiking the wadi

the coolness move over my skin and into my chest. The desert hadn’t promised anything. But it gave me—what?—grace. Cool and wet.

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That was more than a decade ago. But I thought of it yesterday as I hiked Mount Sanitas at sunrise with my dog, Tommy. The trail was steeper than that wadi, but the air was soft with spring rain. Grass and pine. Birds waking up to chirp. I climbed steadily. My boots crunched the gravel. My lungs burned.

And through my headphones came Van Morrison’s In the Garden, from his spiritual period. He sings about the garden, about standing in the presence of the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost. And nature. The song builds like a prayer. Near the end, he chants:

No guru, no method, no teacher.
No guru, no method, no teacher.

It hit me. That’s where I am now.

After years of seeking—reading, chanting, traveling to far-off temples and

mosques, listening to wise teachers—I’m pausing. I’m done listening for now.

Not forever. But for now.

I don’t want more input. I want to drink from the spring that’s already flowing. The one inside me.

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Sometimes, even when life looks fine on the outside, we dry out a little inside. The job holds. The house is warm. There may even be joy. But something deeper goes still. You lose touch with your soul.

If you’ve been there—or if you’re there now—I want to say: it’s okay. This is part of the path. The sacred doesn’t always come as a feeling. Sometimes, it’s just the sound of water in the distance. You follow it. You keep going.

I’ve made it through the dry season. Not all the way. Not every day. But something is moving again. Threading its way back into my mornings and walks and writing.

That’s what seeking is, I think. Not arriving. Just staying with yourself as you go. Trusting that you’re not alone. That something ancient and kind is still flowing inside you.

If this story stirred something in you, I’d love to hear what you're walking through right now. Where are you feeling dry? Where might water return? Feel free to hit reply—I read every message.

Thanks for walking this strange and beautiful path with me.

With you,
Brad

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P.S. If you’re ready to explore your story more deeply, I’m teaching a one-day memoir writing workshop in mid-August. It’s three hours on Zoom, followed by a one-hour follow-up session a week later to help you integrate and continue the work. The class is called:

One Powerful Session. One Inspired Follow-Up. A Lifetime of Writing Tools.
We’ll explore memory, meaning, soul, and voice—and begin shaping the raw material of your life into story.

You can read more and sign up here:
https://bradwetzler.com/one-powerful-session-one-inspired-follow-up-a-lifetime-of-writing-tools/

I’d love to write alongside you.

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If you haven’t bought my memoir, Into the Soul of the World: My Journey to Healing, yet, I hope you will.

Here’s what author Hampton Sides wrote about it:

“Brad Wetzler has led the very definition of an adventurous life, but in Into the Soul of the World, he gives an unflinching account of his interior adventures. Wetzler’s soulful quest, by turns anguished and transcendent, will resonate with readers around the world who struggle to find purpose and a sense of the holy in the ambient jitter of the digital age.”

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