The Current That Won't Let Go
From the burning ghats of Varanasi to my dog’s sickbed in Boulder, I’ve been learning how longing moves through us like a river—and how to follow it without a map
Welcome to Seeking: Letters to the Restless
This newsletter is for anyone caught between worlds—between the clean lines of rational thought and the unruly pull of wonder, between the maps we’re given and the wild places that can’t be mapped at all. It’s for those of us who can’t swallow the rigid doctrines we were handed, yet still feel the tug toward a life that’s more than schedules and headlines. Here, I write about myth, memory, and the strange, steady work of healing. About walking back into your own skin after years of leaving it. About remembering that you’re part of the earth. That your bones carry the same minerals as stone, your breath is in rhythm with the wind.
If the word “God” fits for you, fine. If it doesn’t, that’s fine too. What matters here isn’t belief—it’s staying close to what feels alive in your chest. It’s learning to follow that aliveness into the places that wake you up.
I’m Brad Wetzler, a longtime travel and spiritual writer. My work has appeared in The New York Times, Newsweek, GQ, Wired, and I served as a senior editor at Outside. My memoir Into the Soul of the World (Hachette, 2023) tells the story of crossing deserts, mountains, and inner wastelands in search of a truer life. I’m now writing The God I Can’t Quite Believe In and leading a weekly class, Writing the Soul—a space where we write in real time, searching the territory between mind and spirit.
I admit I’ve had a hard time getting this piece ready this week. This story takes you into the burning ghats of Varanasi—and into the tender, uncertain days I’m living now with Tommy, my dog, as he faces a sudden and possibly fatal disease. In both places, the air feels heavy with what’s slipping away. In Varanasi, the river carries ashes downstream; here at home, I listen to Tommy’s breathing at night, measuring each rise and fall. You’ll recognize it if you’ve been there yourself. When grief and love press in so close they almost become the same thing. When the world asks you to stay when all you want to do is run. My hope is that this story helps you notice your own thresholds, those moments when life is quietly asking you to wake up, to lean in, and to belong even in the places that scare you.
I’m certain you’ve felt it too.
You have, right?
That quiet, inexplicable pull.
The feeling of the universe dragging you into the future as if being pulled by a magnet the size of the moon. What I’m describing is the opposite of how we typically think about these things, with us being all bossypants and trying to free-will it past slings and arrows into the future.
The Pull can seem epic or subtle. Like when you have a dream where a stranger lifts a plump red heart from your chest and sets it on a platter—its meaning so plain you can’t help but keep digging for days, weeks, years. You see a magazine ad for a hotel in a city you’ve never seen, yet some part of you already knows the smell of the air, the window, and the view. You keep turning the page past the add and then turning back. Why does this place even matter, you ask?
And maybe you don’t tell anyone any of this weird stuff, because how would you even explain something like this?
But if we were sitting together right now, I’d know exactly what you meant.
Maybe you’ve ignored the Pull. Maybe you’ve buried it under the “responsible” things. Or maybe you’ve been chasing it your whole life, even when you didn’t know what it was. We seekers, we can’t help it. We sniff around the edges of the map, fully aware that the map never accurately represents the territory.
You and I have something in common: we notice things. A hawk outside your window tilting its wings, then turning and flying straight toward you as if it knows your name. A man on the sidewalk asking for spare change who suddenly folds his hands in prayer and bows with the dignity of a saint. A moment when you remember the old saying that the oxygen in your lungs once moved through Caesar’s, and for a breath or two you’re not sure if that’s science or poetry, or if there’s a difference.
Memoir writers know this territory well. We live in the dance between past and present, tracing the way old events rise up inside us as if they’re happening now. Trauma survivors know it too — the way time can fold in on itself. One smell, one sound, and you’re in two decades at once, your body carrying both. That’s why the pull feels so familiar. It’s not just a hunch. It’s your past and your future both tugging on the same nerve.
I feel this tug of past and future a lot these days. I’m back in Boulder now, but my body still feels like it’s in Santa Fe. These days, I wake, drink coffee, chant, and then take Tommy to the vet. It’s a daily thing right now. My shirt smells of antiseptic and my eyes stay adjusted to bright fluorescent lights. We sit and wait in the empty exam room, Tommy’s big head resting on my knee. His cough is worse. Each time it rattles through him, I feel it in my own chest. I wish he was back in Santa Fe, stretched out by his koi pond, eyes locked on the slow-moving fish like he was last week, mesmerized by the shimmer of their scales. I want to watch him sniff the summer air above and follow the circling green dragonflies with his eyes as if they were sparks from a fire. I wish the water’s reflecting light
Somewhere under the so-called success, I could feel a different desire, one that felt quieter and more ancient. I see it now. In 20/20 hindsight it’s obvious. I wanted to to feel more healed. I wanted to know myself. And, yes, I wanted to know God. I wanted to feel everything — not just report on it. You’ve felt this desire too, haven’t you?
and the pond’s trickling music could hold him, instead of the x-rays and the cold metal tables here.
Maybe that’s why I keep thinking of Varanasi another place that sometimes pulls on my mind like gravity. Or maybe because it’s August, and that’s the month I first visited Varanasi.
It was 1999, 26 years ago this month. I was three years into my freelance career, succeeding beyond my own expectations. Writing for The New York Times, GQ, Wired, and still contributing to Outside, where I’d been an editor. I was traveling constantly and filing stories from ice caps, deserts, conflict zones, and jungles. I thought I wanted to be a famous writer. That was the highest thing I thought I could reach for then. I worked it hard for fifteen years. But somewhere under the so-called success, I could feel a different desire, one that felt quieter and more ancient. I see it now. In 20/20 hindsight it’s obvious. I wanted to to feel more healed. I wanted to know myself. And, yes, I wanted to know God. I wanted to feel everything — not just report on it. You’ve felt this desire too, haven’t you?
Wired sent me to Bangalore to cover India’s tech boom — a story about speed, bandwidth, and a nation with ancient roots rushing into its digital future. I hired a driver, and we moved through the bustling streets clogged with cars and ox carts. We swerved around a broken down car and braked suddenly to keep from slamming into a sacred cow, my head snapping forward and back. For three weeks, diesel exhaust clung to my clothes and I licked my cracked lips from the blazing sun and hours of breathing air mixed with incense, fried oil, and the sweet decay of garbage.
On a day trip to ruins near Mysore, I was the only person at remote ninth-century Vishnu temples carved with gods and demons. I placed my hands on the stone warm under my hands, the carvings so precise I could almost hear the chisels striking a thousand years ago.
Varanasi had been knocking at the door of my soul since the early ’90s, when a friend in Santa Fe first told me about it. Now, in Bangalore, I could barely focus on my assignment. I knew I needed to go in search of a spiritual India, not just a technological one. That meant listening to what my life was telling me, even if it meant walking away from the life I’d built.
But none of it quieted the Pull.
Varanasi had been knocking at the door of my soul since the early ’90s, when a friend in Santa Fe first told me about it. Now, in Bangalore, I could barely focus on my assignment. I knew I needed to go in search of a spiritual India, not just a technological one. That meant listening to what my life was telling me, even if it meant walking away from the life I’d built.
You’ve probably had a moment like that too, when the thing you thought you wanted starts to feel like the thing keeping you from what you really need.
So I went. I flew to Varanasi. I stepped out of the cab and into chaos. The alleys of Varanasi were narrow and crooked. Their stones felt slick from centuries of feet, and the smoky air was heavy and warm against my skin. I smelled the spices before I saw the stalls spice market-- turmeric, cardamom, cumin — mixing with smoke from small cooking fires. A boy carrying strands of marigolds passed me, brushing against my arm. The flowers’ sharp, sweet scent flooded my sinuses. A cow blocked my way, chewing slowly. Its breath smelled grassy and wet. Have you ever experienced, or smelled, something absurd and holy at the same time?
I walked down steep stairs toward the Ganges and stepped into a wooden boat. The boards felt warm under my bare feet. I handed the oarsman a few rupees, and he began rowing me upstream toward thick smoke smoke rising from the burning ghats. When we arrived, I could see or breathe. I stepped off the boat
into hell and climbed a set of stairs toward the fires. At first, I just stood and watched. Men tended the fire and lifted wrapped bodies onto pyres. The white wrapping cloth went black then erupted in orange flames. The heat pressed against my face, the smell of charred flesh and sandalwood clogged my throat. I wanted to turn away. You might have too. But I didn’t. A part of me wanted to be fuly inside this moment, even if it broke me.
And then I felt it. The heat grew inside me, and it felt like the flames had entered my chest. I couldn’t inhale or exhale. I felt the smoke enter my cells. I was the fire.
When one woman’s body had burned down to her sacrum, a man used a stick to lift the bone from the fire. His movements were steady, practiced, and tender. He held the sacrum high and carried it down the steps to a tiny boat where a candle and a flower waited. He set it gently aboard and then pushed it out into the river. I watched as it drifted into the wavy darkness, joining other tiny boats already out there, each one flickering like a star in the black water.
From the ghats, I walked into a dark temple where a few sadhus were gathered
The dank, hot air smelled like… everything. At the front stood a phallic Shiva lingam covered in milk that had pooled at its base. The space felt wild, holy, maybe even a little mad. My heart was pounding. The flames, the smoke, the bodies, the milk, the chanting… it was all blending into one current now, and I was in it.
Suddenly, I needed air.
— some lying on the floor, some kneeling, some muttering in low, rough voices. Their hair was long and matted, twisted into ropes as thick as my wrist. They smelled faintly of smoke and sweat. The dank, hot air smelled like… everything. At the front stood a phallic Shiva lingam covered in milk that had pooled at its base. The space felt wild, holy, maybe even a little mad. My heart was pounding. The flames, the smoke, the bodies, the milk, the chanting… it was all blending into one current now, and I was in it.
Suddenly, I needed air.
Have you ever stepped into something so alive it might dissolve you entirely. A crowd at a concert? A stretch of ocean?
My skin tingled. My vision sharpened. The edges between me and the air blurred. After the temple, I knew something in me had shifted. I couldn’t pretend anymore that the real work of my life was about assignments, deadlines, or even the dream of being a famous writer. The desire was still there — sharp, familiar — but it had dropped into a deeper current. I wanted to know myself. I wanted to know God. I wanted to feel everything. Not skim the surface of the world for a story, but step all the way inside it, live in my own body like I belonged here, and walk through the days as if they were holy.
I stepped back into the alley, blinking against the bright sun, and felt something loosen inside me. My skin was buzzing, my breath slow and deep. It was like the city was whispering: Wake up. You belong here. You belong everywhere you stand. I thought I’d come to India chasing a story, maybe even chasing a self I
And maybe you’ve felt it too, a moment you realize the real journey isn’t to find a place on a map, but to find yourself fully awake inside your body, the one place you can never leave.
could put in print. But standing there, heart still racing, I saw that what I really wanted was to feel at home in this body, in this life, in this strange and tender world.
And maybe you’ve felt it too, a moment you realize the real journey isn’t to find a place on a map, but to find yourself fully awake inside your body, the one place you can never leave.
When I left, it wasn’t really leaving. The city had entered me. It had burned a hole in the false skin of my life. Maybe you’re here too, in your own way—standing at a quiet crossroads, sensing something has ended but not yet knowing what will begin.
Back in Santa Fe, I’d walk down the street and still feel the burning ghats, the smoke curling into the sky. When I moved to Boulder during a flooding rainstorm, I kept seeing boys leaping from temple steps into the swollen Ganges, bodies suspended for an instant before the water took them. The current was still moving in me.
You don’t have to cross an ocean to feel this. It can happen in the steam rising from your coffee or the way afternoon light pools on the floor. One moment you’re worried about your to-do list, and the next you’re in some other register of reality—blessed, rearranged.
The pull—the one that brought me to Varanasi and keeps drawing me—feels older than time. We think we’re steering toward the future by choice, but I’m not so sure. It feels more like something vast is reeling me in, like I’m a small fish on an invisible line. Call it Spirit, God, the Universe—it doesn’t matter. It’s alive. I can feel it tug.
Don’t wait for certainty. Let it catch you in the middle of a Tuesday, in the middle of your ordinary life. Let it take you somewhere you didn’t plan to go.
Your longing isn’t separate from the world’s—it’s the same current moving through rivers, cities, galaxies, through your own ribcage. When you follow it, you join every pilgrim who’s ever stepped into the unknown without a map. And when you arrive—whatever arriving looks like for you—come sit with us. We’ve been waiting.
I hope you’ll take a moment to leave a comment. This space isn’t meant to be a one-way transmission. It’s a place for real conversation, for connection, for building something that feels human and alive. We are slowly, steadily creating a community here—one made up of people who are listening more closely to their lives, who are drawn to meaning, who are exploring their stories with honesty and care.
I read every comment, and I respond to every one. You don’t have to write anything polished or profound—just something real, true, and, honestly, from where you are.
You’re not alone in this work.
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.”
I love the idea of pilgrimage Brad, that we are being drawn by an invisible thread, one we desire even if we don’t know it consciously, the current of the river, the directions of the wind. Seeking is not always knowing, I guess. But on we go, relying only on the humanness of us, driven by what Joyce called ‘the ineluctable modality of the visible’ when all the time the secrets seem to lie inevitably in what we do not (perhaps can not) see. I am held by the image of the sacrum (sacred) honoured by flame and water. Don’t know if that makes sense?
I enjoyed this piece, especially the wisdom of realizing that the things you thought you wanted were but roadblocks to what you needed.
For many years I thought the pull was to Ireland. All that stubborn blood coursing through my veins. Then I fell in love with Maine and the stories of my ancestors setting up ex pat communities during the French Revolution. High romance, that one. And, still, there is no question that the wildness that is both of those places draws me like light beyond darkness. I still feel the warmth of Ireland and its' people; the smell of salt sea and mist over stone still haunts my daytime dreams of Maine. Yet, more and more I understand that the call is from my life, the life I never lived. Nor am I talking about anything a label would dress up. Or an accomplishment left unfinished. It is the knowledge that for most of my life, nay, almost all of it, I have danced to the beat of others' drums. Without being wide awake to my own life, I shrunk to fit. I feigned happiness. I raised four children and supported more than one man in the process. Yet, all those years, there was an ache. An ache to be the girl I was long ago. The girl who roamed fields with her dog and sat under bridges fishing. Who found comfort in the company of quiet people. Now, my life has come calling. Wooing me back to the girl I left behind. The one who said yes to fireflies and starlight. Who wept as a little girl to the opera "La Boheme". Who found comfort and meaning in the friendship of dogs. I am on my way home, now. I know who I am. I have answered the call. C'est moi.