I’ve started to believe that the airport may be the first sacred site of every journey.

I know that sounds strange. After all, airports are not particularly peaceful places. They’re crowded, noisy, and overstimulating. People rush past one another pulling suitcases, checking departure boards, standing in security lines, and worrying about making their connections. Nothing about an airport is outwardly sacred. And yet, every time I step into one, I sense that something important is happening.

The Airport as a Modern-Day Threshold

The moment we enter an airport, we cross a threshold.

We leave behind the familiar rhythms of our everyday lives and step into a space between worlds—a place between who we have been and who we are about to become. We haven’t yet arrived at our destination, but we are no longer fully rooted in the life we temporarily left behind. We exist somewhere in between.

Why Thresholds Have Always Been Sacred

Ancient cultures understood the power of thresholds. Doorways, gates, bridges, and crossroads were never viewed as ordinary places. They represented transition. They marked the moment one chapter ended, and another began. Pilgrimages often started with a symbolic departure from ordinary life and an entrance into sacred time. Before the traveler ever reached a holy mountain or an ancient temple, the transformation had already begun simply because they had chosen to leave.

I’ve come to believe that airports serve that same purpose in the modern world.

Every sacred journey I’ve ever taken has begun there.

The Sacredness of Waiting

Every trip has a moment I have come to cherish. It happens after I’ve passed through security, checked my luggage, found my gate, and settled into a chair with nothing left to do but wait. For the first time in days—or perhaps weeks—nowhere else can I be. No errands to run. No meetings to attend. No emails demanding my attention. I simply wait.

And in that waiting, something shifts.

The mind loosens its grip on routine. The future becomes wonderfully unknown. Possibility quietly enters. Curiosity awakens. I become more present, more attentive, and more open to whatever the journey has come to teach me.

Travel Teaches Us to Release Control

Travel has a remarkable way of doing that.

It gently reminds us that certainty is often an illusion. Flights are delayed. Weather changes. Plans evolve. Again and again, we’re invited to release control and practice trust. The journey asks us to surrender to what unfolds rather than cling to what we expected.

Perhaps that’s why I love airports so much.

Transformation Begins Before We Arrive

They remind me that transformation doesn’t begin when I arrive at Stonehenge, walk the Camino, stand inside Chartres Cathedral, or watch the sunrise over Chaco Canyon.

It begins the moment I decide to leave.

The Courage to Depart

The decision to depart is itself an act of faith. We leave behind what is familiar without knowing exactly who we will be when we return. Every meaningful journey asks us to exchange certainty for possibility. That exchange is where transformation begins.

As I’ve reflected on the many sacred places I’ve visited around the world, I’ve realized that each pilgrimage actually begins in the same place—not at an ancient monastery or sacred mountain, but at an airport gate where I quietly step out of my ordinary life and into the unknown.

Perhaps that is why I have started seeing airports differently.

Not simply as places of departure.

But as modern-day threshold spaces.

A bridge between the outer journey and the inner one waiting to unfold.

And perhaps that is what makes them sacred.

Not because of where they take us.

But because of who they invite us to become.

Every Sacred Journey Begins With a Yes

As I write in The Soul’s Compass, every sacred journey begins long before we reach a destination. It begins the moment we say yes to leaving the familiar behind, trusting the unknown, and allowing ourselves to be transformed. Sometimes the first sacred step isn’t taken on an ancient pilgrimage trail.

Sometimes it’s taken at Gate B12.

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