When Your Dream Is A Place

Why do we fall in love with a place or places? Those points on the map we dream of, the ones we do anything possible to visit or move to…

Or do these places actually choose us in some crazy cosmic way?

Were they always meant to have a piece of our hearts?

If you don’t know me, I’m Kathy McCabe, the founder of Dream of Italy ®, I host a popular PBS travel series of the same name, as well as a second PBS series Dream of Europe ®

The seed of our dreams of place always seems to start with familiarity, a sense of home. I would argue though that “sense of home” is not just the most important attribute, it may be hardest to explain as it emanates from our very core. It can lead us back to our childhoods and what we already sense as home or instead represent move of an aspirational “home.”

There are very tangible characteristics that pull us like a magnet to a place. When I created and hosted the Dream of Italy: Travel, Transform and Thrive Special for PBS, I identified 11 characteristics that inspires us to Travel, Transform and Thrive™- in Italy or many other places:

1. sense of home

2. the land (environment)

3. beauty

4. community (people)

5. art & culture

6. food

7. movement

8. celebrations

9. family (ancestors too)

10. passion

11. pace of life

This is a great list to use if you’re still looking for your place in the world, or planning a move and want to evaluate what a location might offer. (Get the TTT book if you want to move to Italy.) If a place is a dish served warm, these 11 elements are the essential ingredients in the recipe.

For me, when I first stepped foot in Italy, I felt like I was back in my grandparents’ living room, the smells of meat and pasta cooking in the kitchen, the noise of the TV blaring and my grandparents speaking loudly to each other and over the chatter of the television. The warmth plus mild chaos comforted me and made me feel at home.

In my example above this pull to Italy was one back to my childhood, yes, but as my love affair with Italy continued, there were other reasons that we much more….what would you call them? Cosmic? For example, how do you explain the connections we have to places we’ve never been? Read on…

When dreaming of a place, we must consider the forces we cannot see. The very things that might bring us romantic love, often in an inexplicable or inconvenient way, also work their magic in the places that call us home.

Suspend your disbelief for a moment, if you’re a skeptic of such things, and consider maybe just maybe, metaphysics, energy, frequency, astrology and soul connections likely play significant roles in the geography of our lives.

Have you ever been to Sedona? What did you feel there? This is the ultimate example of energy certain places hold.

Sedona is home to world-renowned energy vortexes, special spots where the Earth's electromagnetic energy spirals upward among the stunning red rock formations.

For me the energy of Sedona, the calming, the spiritual connection, overcame me the moment I arrived. In fact, I noticed that my dog could feel it too. I’ve never felt the pull of the Earth more than I have in Sedona. I’ve definitely felt it in places in Italy, including my beloved Saturnia, an ancient town of hot springs in Tuscany’s Maremma. That’s why I return there multiple times a year.

I’ve felt something similar in Aspen, Colorado and even Googled “Aspen vortex,” only to find out that the large amount of silver in the ground in Aspen gives it a special kind of energy that the Ute, the indigenous people who lived here, revered.

As someone who is extremely sensitive to the environment, I’ve also studied “the location effect,” a phenomenon observed by many patients with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity and Mold Illness that they feel dramatically better in specific buildings, towns or regions of the world. The causes can be less mold and humidity and better air quality. These ideal locations are often beaches or deserts and far from cities and industrial farming.

Have you noticed the location effect? Where?

It turns out my beloved Saturnia ALSO has some of the best air quality in Italy. So both the Earth and sky inspire my dream of this corner of Italy.

For the 30 years that I have been visiting Italy, I have always felt more serendipity there, that things often line up in a magical way in ways they don’t in any other place I have lived or visited. Good things happen to me in Italy.

What could explain this? Have you heard of astrocartography? It is all the rage these days especially with many Americans wanting to move abroad but not being sure the best place to go. (I particularly love Helena Woods on the topic.)

Astrocartography is a blend of astrology and geography that maps out how different locations around the world might influence your life based on your birth chart. The idea is that certain places on Earth align with specific planetary energies from your natal chart, potentially amplifying different aspects of your personality or life experiences when you visit or live there.

For instance, your "Venus line" might run through Paris, suggesting that city could enhance romance and creativity in your life, while your "Mars line" might cut through New York, possibly boosting your ambition and energy there.

Last year, I received an astrocartography reading for the very first time. The astrologer began by telling me that almost everyone who comes to him wants to move to the WRONG place, but luckily, my desire to live in Italy was “dead-on,” he told me (Haha…I purposely didn’t tell him what I did for a living because I didn’t want to sway him.)

I asked him for specifics on where to live in Italy and had to laugh out loud when he picked a few where it would, his words, not mine, “it will rain men and money!” And you’re wondering why I’m not there yet? So am I. Not only was I concerned with locations that would benefit career and love, I was explicit with him that I wanted to live where I would have the best health.

It is this prediction that when I later remembered it made me think his whole reading was spot on. “If you stay in Denver, you will get sick. Move now.” I didn’t and couldn’t and indeed got very sick in Denver a few months later. I’m doing well now.

I would never move or advise anyone to move based solely on an astrocartography reading. We must rely on our innate senses to make decisions. Yet the reading helped me understand my own innate hesitation about moving to certain Italian places that I absolutely love — that it is okay to visit them, I just don’t need to live there.

Have you ever had an astrocartography reading? Do you think it was accurate?

Still with me? Then you’re one of my people. I’ve left the best, the most profound, for last. But not everyone will agree with me, and that’s okay because at midlife, I just don’t care anymore. (Have you heard of the We Do Not Care Club on TikTok - love it!)

It is my personal belief that we reincarnate, that our souls travel as families of sorts through lifetimes together and that we come to Earth with very specific soul contracts and connections. (A great resource on this is Dr. Brian Weiss, an MD who really first brought this to the mainstream. His books were life changing for me. Start with Many Lives, Many Masters if you’re curious.)

Just like we can get that inexplicable familiarity with a stranger we meet (my God, do I have a story about that but it will take me a lot to share it), those deja vu, love at first sight feelings, so can we feel like this for a place.

Maybe we’ve lived there in another lifetime? Open your mind. This is certainly possible. Maybe we have a “soul contract” to fulfill and a place pulls us like a magnet. I have a friend who is an intuitive who believes that only 25% of our lives are “free will” and the rest is somewhat destined. Not sure that I agree with that, but there’s no way to know for sure about any of this. Fun to ponder!

This concept of “soul connections” also explains the many people I have met who are completely obsessed with a location who have never been there in this lifetime. They read everything they can, watch movies, save their money to visit. They just feel called.

This can of course be explained on a soul level, but it is also true on a blood level, why I was drawn to the land of my ancestors (Italy) and why you may be too. Those soul groups we travel with, well lots of them are members of our family.

And I should note that this “ soul feeling” one gets in a place can be a negative one as well. There is one mid-sized Italian city I always get the creeps in, that I can’t leave fast enough. Why? Maybe I’ve been there in a different lifetime and it wasn’t such a good experience.

In conclusion, our dreams of place can be influenced by the very practical and obvious (the food is great, the sun shines 300 days a year, the people are kind), but don’t discount the forces we cannot see that inspire you to dream of…that place you love more than anywhere else.