The next morning, Moolynaut's stepson, Oleg, asked me:

"Jon, you know why you got scared and turned back?"

I said, "No."

He explained that every person gets a certain amount of power in this world.
You can channel that power any way you want, but you don't get any more than
your allocation. I had channeled all my power into traveling well in this
world, and I didn't have enough left to travel into the other world. So,
Oleg explained, since I was clearly seeking something, I had to make my
spirit journey in this world.

It hadn't dawned on me that I was seeking something, but then I realized
that I was.

So Misha and I decided to ski across the frozen wasteland of northeast
Siberia:

Nine time zones from the nearest paved road.

No outside support or food drops.

No idea of what we will find.

And this is the journey that I am going to write about.