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In times of profound change, the learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists. --- attributed to either Al Rogers or Eric Hoffer [quoted from How to Save the World]
This post is a SynchroBlog on The Politics of God hosted through the site Square No More. See the end of this post for other blogs that are posting today on this topic.
Politics seem to require a good/bad or right/wrong or even better/best duality of thinking. This post is not about unpacking specifics about politics or defining God. It is about a flash of non-dual experience that left a memory of insight.
Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing, there is a field. I'll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. --Jalāl-ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī
In 2001 I attended a fire circle on Grand Mesa in western Colorado where I then lived. The fire was in conjunction with a class being taught by a shaman in the Huichol and Nahuatl traditions from central Mexico, named Eliot Cowan. I was new to this path of indigenous connection to the earth and the spirits that inhabit it. My spiritual life had been lived pretty much in the dry lands of religious belief and some mystical experiences that kept me going.
The evening started with excellent potluck, followed by a waiting period of drumming, walking about, laughter and anticipation. As Eliot came to the hearth, we all gathered. The jokes, as usual around these fires, were funny with some groaners thrown in for good measure. As we settled in, with good rich dark chocolate and homemade cigarettes, the plant spirit medicine class began to talk about some issues coming out of their studies, and then the topic shifted to the destruction of indigenous habitat, culture and religion. Along with the group, I was silently bemoaning the irreversible losses. We were talking about how even the world's religions were being 'infiltrated' by outsiders, i.e. lineages of Buddhism now include westerners; indeed, the Huichol lineage now has as its leader Eliot, who is Jewish by heritage, but has spent time living with Hinduism, studying Buddhism, etc.
I was listening intently when something hit me, as if upside my head. All of a sudden, I heard what Eliot was really saying, at least to me. What I heard was him saying that it's our attachment to how the world is supposed to be that keeps us from being engaged in what really is. Our preoccupation and conflict with the external 'machine' of the world (read: war, famine, rape of the land and its people, destruction of indigenous cultures/religions/habitat, politics, etc, ad nauseum) keeps us from experiencing the wonder of what, like the Phoenix, is being born out of ashes and destruction. He was not saying that we shouldn't do anything about what's around us to do, but that our awareness can be broader, deeper, in touch with rhythms that we can't experience at casual glance. Our real work is not in the external world, but to see ourselves as part of a panoramic theatre that any one life, century, millenium or even epoch can't change or even impact.
flickr photo by Irena Kittenclaw
Eliot's words were like a lightning jolt through me. In that instance I saw that my profound judgment of how the world is was keeping me from being free. My heart pounding, I asked the question that was like a wild bird thrashing against the walls of a make-shift cage: 'If I see the world with larger eyes and feel with a larger heart that what is happening to the world is not only an end but also a beginning, part of cycles of existence rather than of linear time, will I be free? Will I be through the knothole of my grief in the space of one breath?'
Eliot puffed on his cigar for awhile, I'm now sure feeling the beating of my heart and said, 'Yes. But don't forget to grieve'.
I didn't recognize it at that moment, but I'd had a non-dual experience of reality in those fleeting seconds. I saw the world as one piece of cloth, one groaning, travailing birthing experience--with no beginning and no end. No right and no wrong.
Since that night in fall 2001, I've leaned even more heavily into my grief about the world, and my inability to do much about it except to gather around the fire with my community to warm our hearts. The grief sometimes is crushing, sometimes light as a Canadian goose feather falling on my head as the goose migrates south for the winter. But I have not forgotten Eliot's words. I am grieving with all my heart and soul. And will, as long as it takes. Freedom is on the other side of the knothole, the other side of this birth canal.
I do what I can: I recycle, reuse, try to be a healing presence, try to be aware of my footprint on the earth. But I now know with the deepest knowing available to me at this stage in my evolution, that it's not about any of that. The mystery now lies in letting go of each attachment to the world--as it should, or even might be.
To be a learner is to know that the world as I knew it today--a second ago--no longer exists. And to let go of trying to categorize or familiarize myself with the landscape. Only in that letting go do I get a hallway pass for sweet respite into Rumi's field.
I can't yet live in that poppy-filled field but my soul thrives in those moments where life just is. And in those moments, knowing that Saddam Hussein is made from the same cloth as Mother Teresa...and President Bush...gives a rush of grief and pleasure in equal measure. And all of them live in me. And all of us live in the heart of God.
What would a political primary look like if nobody was right and nobody wrong? We may never know...or not at least on this turn of the wheel of existence.
'Better luck next time', I hear Rumi whisper in my ear.
All that being said, our shamanic and quite cool friends Alice and the Cat give us a hint of what such a political primary might maddeningly feel like:
from Alice in Wonderland
Alice: Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?
The Cat: That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.
Alice: I don't much care where.
The Cat: Then it doesn't much matter which way you go.
Alice: …so long as I get somewhere.
The Cat: Oh, you're sure to do that, if only you walk long enough.
This post is part of a SynchroBlog for Square No More on 'The Politics of God' . This post is a re-take of a previous one on the Virtual Tea House in October 2007: Through the Looking Glass.
Please visit the delectable variety of other blogs that are also addressing the issues of 'The Politics of God':
Phil Wyman at Phil Wyman's Square No More
Lainie Petersen at Headspace
Jonathan Brink enters The Political Fray
Adam Gonnerman explains The Living Christ's Present Reign
Sonja Andrews at Calacirian
Mike Bursell at Mike's Musings
Sally Coleman at Eternal Echoes
Steve Hayes on God's Politics
Matthew Stone at Matt Stone Journeys in Between
Steve Hollinghurst at On Earth as in Heaven
KW Leslie tells us about God's Politics
Julie Clawson at One Hand Clapping
Dan Stone at The Tense Before
Alan Knox asks Is God Red, Blue, or Purple?
Beth Patterson at The Virtual Teahouse
Erin Word discusses Hanging Chad Theology
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This is not to be confused with 'who's yo' mama?' although there may be similarities. As we develop a blogroll for the Virtual Tea House, wanted to start with who I currently aggregate and move outward in concentric circles.
oops that's an eggroll not a blogroll. I'll get this right yet.
I realized this week that many faithful users of the internet don't use an aggregator to keep them in touch with the sites that they are connecting to. I'm no pro at this, but right now I'm using Netvibes as a web-based aggregator, and FeedDemon as a rich-client aggregator. Google Reader, My Yahoo, and Pageflakes are other popular examples of the former, and RSS Bandit is another popular example of the latter.
Netvibes is the opening page when I go to the internet. On it there's lots of general info that is set to feed info for my specific locale, including the weather in Bend, Oregon, a to-do list, wikipedia, an image search, my Facebook feed, daily moon phases, etc. And then there are the tab feeds. That's where, through the RSS feeds or ATOM syndication of these sites, I can tell when there is a new post or new information on each site that I have chosen to aggregate.
On the Netvibes feed, a number shows up if there's a new post, and I can click on the site and it will open. I can then click on the number after I've read the feed to show that I've read it so I know when there's a new feed. Sometimes if I'm having a lazy week, there will be 3 or more posts on the feed that I haven't read or attended to. Bad me. Maybe happy me. Depends on the week.
Here are the sites/writers being followed (it sounds a little like stalking doesn't it!) on my aggregator-du-jour (Netvibes):
Life, as it is:
- my everyday memoirs (Karen Crone is a writer, mother and oncology nurse. She thinks deep thoughts and writes soulful poetry and reflections.)
- How to Save the World (Dave Pollard's salon on environmental philosophy, creative works, business papers and essays. In search of a better way to live and make a living, and a better understanding of how the world really works. Dave is a big-picture thinker and challenges the status-quo every chance he gets.)
- 37 days: what would you be doing today if you knew that you had only 37 days to live? (Patti Digh is a writer, artist, teacher and facilitator of process. Her new book Life is a Verb is available in early September. More to come on the Virtual Tea House about this book!)
- Crossroads Dispatches (Evelyn Rodriguez, a neo-renaissance, eco-epicurean savors, curates and shares slices from the surf's edge on the inspiration, imagination, the art of living, the living of art - and anything that screams Life.)
Newspapers: The New York Times and my local paper, Bend Bulletin. I also have the NYT headlines delivered to my email address.
General:
Poetry:
Social/spiritual intersections and creativity:
Mythology and imagery:
Religious/Political/Social:
- Anamchara: The Website of Unknowing (Carl McColman is a writer, neo-Pagan returning to Christian roots, mystic and connoisseur of the mystery of life. He's currently working on a book on Christian mysticism. He's also a great integrator of disparate strands of thought.)
- Jesus Manifesto (What's happening in the missional evangelical and post-modern Christianity realms. Interesting stuff. Site loads slowly, but it's often worth the wait. They didn't choose my recent submission to a Pentecost Now contest, but I love them anyway--just like Jesus would do... Here's my submission, and I'm sticking to it: Stepping into a violent wind)
- Square No More (Phil Wyman is pastor at a radical evangelical church in Salem, MA. His inclusivity and openness to dialogue with 'the other' have earned him many nicknames, among them 'Friend to Witches'! He's funny and humble. Here's the byline to his blog: Since discovering that church was pretty much out of touch with people today, I've been having a few sharp corners knocked off. These are lessons which I am learning in the process. Anybody is welcome to challenge me, refute me, denounce me, exorcise me, or tell me nice things about my curly hair.)
- Conversation at the Edge (Helen Mildenhall is an excellent integrator of agnostic, atheistic and religious thought)
- Re-dreaming the dream (Glenn Hager is recovering from being a pastor. His offerings are heart-felt and honest and I like him!)
Living more simply and sanely:
Personal sites I like, and don't aggregate, but read regularly:
If you have an aggregator, and you're so inclined, you can add the Virtual Tea House to it here. Thanks!
If you'd like to have any of the blog posts from the Virtual Tea House come directly to your email, follow the instructions below:
For Bill Ellis's posts, click here.
For Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer's posts, click here.
For Michelle Meech's posts, click here.
For Holly Holbrooks' posts, click here.
For Krayna Castelbaum's Poem of the Month posts, click here.
For Rita Clagett's posts, click here.
For Beth Patterson's posts, click here.
If you need help figuring out how to use an aggregator, let me know--I'll connect with you and see if we can figure it out together. Bet we can.
NOW...what are your favorite sites: ones that inspire, challenge and enliven you? What are sites that the readers of Virtual Tea House might want to add to their list of 'friends in the ether-zones'?
Happy Sunday--
Beth, VTH Host
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This is a guest post by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, a regular blogger on the Virtual Tea House. She's a little busy right now, so I'm posting this for her, to my blog. Four hours of labor...and a lifetime of preparation.
Congratulations to Rosemerry, Eric, Shawnee, Finn...and that lucky Orchard Girl Vivian!
Eric and Rosemerry with the 'let's get this thing done' expert, Vivian
Here she's a few moments old. July 15, 2008
From Rosemerry:
Dear Friends,
Meet our new orchard girl, Vivian (no middle name yet), born July 15 at 12:13 a.m. as the peaches were turning pink on the branches outside the window and the apricots were being harvested from the trees nearby. She came into the world like she wanted to be here … waiting till she was fully ready (her due date was the day before) and then entering the world licketysplitly, as Finn would say. She’s a hearty nurser and loves to be held.
I am feeling great, though as if transported to some kind of parallel universe. For two days I have wanted to write you all about it and send pictures and thank you for all your support.
The labor was around four hours, beginning while Finn and I were playing cars on the porch before I was going to take him to school. Instead, Shawnee, Eric’s daughter who is home for a while before going to DU for graduate school, took him while I called the midwife, Bill, to say I wouldn’t be arriving for my appointment later that morning. He sent his assistant, Marlene, who arrived around 10:30am. At that point I was still able to take her on a garden tour of eggplants and zucchini, sampling apricots from the bins along our way. But she soon called the midwife, Bill, and said, “You’d better come quick!”
Around 11, harder labor hit, and Eric held my head and hummed to me, even took a picture of me midway and said “Smile,” which I did, just to prove I could, before the next contraction hit. Shawnee returned and joined us for the end, and the midwife arrived around 12:10pm, just after Vivian’s head had come out. Perfect timing to deliver the rest of the body and take care of the newborn. Though they thought she looked dainty, she weighs 7 pounds 3 ounces, is 19 inches long, has dark brown hair, blue eyes and is in perfect health.
After getting the call that the baby would be here soon, my mother, who lives nearby in Montrose (Colorado), baked a birthday cake (carrot, my favorite) and arrived with it shortly after 2pm. Eric, in addition to helping deliver the baby, kept the orchard running … managed the apricot harvest, took the workers to town to the bank, and picked up Finn at daycare. Talk about a superman. Finn walked in from school to meet her and said, “She’s beauty,” and loves to pet her and kiss her and check on “Baby Sister.”
The only downside to the fast labor was that my best friend, Michelle, who I had planned to be at the birth, was still driving to the orchard when the baby arrived. But she brought with her a large metal stencil sign that says ‘celebrate’ that is outside our front door, and that is exactly what we are doing—celebrating this beautiful life. My friend Art Goodtimes sent this poem the day after she was born:
orchard born
what riper fruit can
we offer this hungry world
than our love made flesh?
-for our new goddess baby
Love to all of you,
Rosemerry, Eric, Shawnee, Finn & Vivian
read my columns on parenting at
http://parentingsquad.com/rosemerry-wahtola-trommer
read my columns on the spirituality of everyday life at
http://virtualteahouse.com/blogs/rosemerry/default.aspx
On a day when the wind is perfect,
the sail just needs to open
and the love starts.
Today is such a day.
--Rumi
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Not that any of us thought he was wrong...
I woke up this morning after a week of frustrating events, feeling like I was the main source of problems in my (read: 'the') world. I felt like I'd alienated important relationships, had a disturbing set of dreams, failed at work, failed at parenthood, failed at being able to move steadily towards the lighthouse of my life of living in harmony, at peace with my surroundings and whatever-comes-to-me-as-teacher. And even failing at becoming a crone. The only thing I'd done right was not kicking my dear Damn Dog (and he was irritating me pretty profoundly with his 4:30am whining to go for a hike).
While still half-asleep, I processed most of this, tongue-in-cheek, with my beloved, who was kind and inherently wise in his unwillingness to get in the let's-jump-on-Beth-soup with me. As I got up and around, my cell phone rang, and it was my kid, who is living in Denver and struggling to become a fully-functioning adult. She is in the same place as I---a difficult life transition. She from adolescent to young adult. I from some sort of adulthood to baby-crone. We talked for a long time, and began to laugh at our perceptions about how ungraceful we seem to be at these transitions; ungainly like some young animals. We talked broadly about re-calibrating our lives to be more in line with our goals. We shared the metaphor (I think it's true) of airliners, which although they appear to be moving in a straight line, are constantly making small corrections towards the announced goal (of Denver, Miami or Stockholm).
flikr photo by dondj2
We ended the call at 7:30am both feeling better from sharing our brokenness and vulnerabilities, laughing at our impoverished egos that seek always to catastrophize so that we become or stay paralyzed.
Hmm.
I remembered then what Bill Wilson said in his development of one of the most profound psycho-spiritual paths of our times--Alcoholics Anonymous. He said, and I paraphrase: 'when you're hurting and feel hopeless and helpless, go work with another alcoholic.'
Here's how I would rephrase my own paraphrase: we can't think ourselves out of our funks or depressions but we can work towards the greater good of connectivity and in that work find our own sorrow lightened. What my daughter and I had done was to help each other by connecting through the human conditions that we share.
And then I opened my emails. There, right in front of my out-of-joint nose was an offering on NetVibes (an aggregator) from a favorite website, zen habits
Posted: 14 July 2008 05:47 PM CDT
“Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.” - Eric Fromm
The recent death of my Auntie Kerry put me in a state of mind that I think we all go through at different times in our lives: the feeling of utter isolation, of complete loneliness.
There are times when we feel that even if we are surrounded by other people in our lives, we are alone. We must go through this difficult journey called life by ourselves, no matter if we’re married or if we have children or close friends. And that’s a very lonesome prospect.
How do we overcome these feelings of loneliness and despair? While common, these feelings can be dangerous if we let them go too far — they can lead to depression, suicidal thoughts, or just a slump in our lives.
The answer is in connecting with other human beings.
When we connect with other humans, we are no longer alone. We share our suffering, our experiences, our common trials. The misery we face is no longer insurmountable when we have someone to face it with us.
But making that leap from being alone to making a connection can be a difficult one. One reader who contacted me recently, for example, has a form of social anxiety that stops him from talking to people in social situations. That’s a tough obstacle to overcome, but it can be done.
While I’m not an expert in social anxiety or in relationships, I have overcome my share of social anxiety, overcome my share of depression, and found ways to forge human connections in my years as a son, brother, husband, father, co-worker, boss and friend.
Here's the rest of the story, some tips on How to Connect With Humanity When You Feel All Alone
Meta-message: I guess we're not ever alone in this universe, although at times like early this morning, it feels as though we are. We're always home, dang it.
May your day be full of connections that bring you home, like that airliner that's headed, even slightly, towards *Fargo when you really want to go to Seattle. * This isn't to say that Fargo isn't a fun place to visit.
With great gratitude--
Beth, VTH Host
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What d'ya know!
Virtual Tea House is, as of this morning, on a very cool new aggregator...'Alltop'.
They're a tad picky about who they aggregate, so VTH is honored to be playing with these 'cool kids'!
According to their site, they "help you explore your passions by collecting stories from 'all the top' sites on the web." Check their site out--and if you're looking for VTH, go to 'tea' (an astonishing list of tea-related topics and sites by the way) and you'll find us!
I thought about getting one of the Alltop widgets to put on this site that says 'we kick ass'...and I still could--what do you all think about that?
If you don't know how to utilize an aggregator let me know and I'll help you. If you want to hide some of the categories (they can be a little overwhelming) you can hide some so you are looking only at the ones you're interested in.
Beth, VTH Cool Kid wannabe NO, on second thought, I never wanted to be a cool kid. I was always the one dancing to the beat of a different flutist. But that's another story.
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This is the 5th and almost last of the series in the 'where's home' exercise. My personal post about 'where's home?' is still being born, and will take its first breath after I hear from y'all. This post is the compilation of finalists' entries. You are invited...no, urged... to comment letting us know which entry is your favorite, and if you please, a little about why it touched you.
The purpose of this exercise is to engage us in a dialogue about 'home'--not necessarily an intellectual debate but a kinesthetic and/or feeling connection. Please engage with us about this topic. A short comment about any of the following stunning submissions--or possibly one of the submissions that I didn't arbitrarily choose actually spoke to you more clearly-- to help you speak your heart-mind about home...that's what we're up to here.
Patti Digh's Asheville, NC backyard full of mysterious wysteria...
A quote from Dave Pollard's thoughtful submission on this topic says: Home is the place that realizes these three 'existentials': It is where one can be what one is good at being, where one can be what one loves being, and where one can be what one is needed to be. The ducklings... studied so carefully by biologist Bernd Heinrich, will know their home instinctively, even though it will change (from wetland to meadow to tundra, in cycles) many times throughout their lives. Each time they will migrate home as precisely and unhesitantly as a guided missile. They know where is home, for them.
As we 'migrate home', let's talk about this instinct that is like a guided missile...many of the ills of our world is because the deep knowing of place and rootedness has been disrupted, dishonored, destroyed. In this exercise we're trying to do our one small part to acknowledge our dependence on knowing where our nurturance comes from, in other words, 'who's our mama'.
Photo taken at Beit Jala, West Bank
flickr: Whirlingdervish
With great gratitude to all who submitted, here are the finalists for the 'where's home?' contest/exercise:
Barb Torke, Cedaredge, Colorado
I have two homes now. The town home is the gallery, where the tiny bungalow kept me safe while I waited for an age without sight. That time hasn’t come—yet, but I found that ‘home’ where I had friends, work, and a house. The home I treasured let the moonlight in, kept the cold out, and pushed the underground creek up into the cat tails by the shed. In town, near everything I needed, it made promises it has kept. Now I wander in the garden, pull a few weeds, and feel at home. I work in the studio. Doing my art is home. I teach classes. The classroom is home.
Yet I sleep in my home on Cedar Mesa. I pull weeds here, too. I fight an eternal war with grasshoppers and gnats for my pretties—my iris, my yarrow, my dianthus—my home. Many times I feel the breeze—or the wind—smell the lilacs, and touch the lamb’s ear. Here I listen to the wind sough through the pines, and listen to my lover’s voice. My life has always been so full of sight. Now I have a home that offers up the music of wind chimes and brass bells, the scent of sagebrush and pine sap. Here I sense music and aroma, touch rough bark and moving grasses, have a good stove, taste wine and herbs, see the San Juans, the mesa, the Uncompahgre plateau—a cacophony for all the senses.
I slip from world to world with these two homes. Homes I have lived with all hold indelible fondness for me. I remember Goodrich. I grew up in a big house on 160 acres. Where was my home there? In the house where we slept in the basement to keep cool in the summers? In the front room where my father slept in the afternoons after irrigating the fields during the night? Was it the fields of alfalfa or the meandering ‘ditch’ of seep water that passed through to the South Platte? I sometimes think it was and is all in my head and heart, even now.
As then I now see home as a large area of land. Home is a responsibility, much the same as the responsibility I take for my health, and my children. Recycle, grow organic, buy local, all these are responsibilities I take under my management. Yet I slip into the cocoon of home that sits below my breast bone. The home that holds a heart and lungs and mind is the micro-home. The macro-home is where I drift, remembering to brush my teeth, pay my bills, and endure. It can be anywhere. A sleeping bag on the mesa is a short term home. Cirque Soleil is a home the entertainers have built. Tai chi in the town park is home.
Rifle Falls Campground, Western Colorado
It is not easy being at home anywhere. Security was always my bugaboo, not only a secure place for me, but for my family. I struggle with relationships with people. Community disguises itself in control. Finding home in the community can lead us into guilt and shame, if we ask it too.
Hope and dependency make me scattered. I need a home that is now, here, where I can’t hope for anything better. Then it becomes a choice.
A rocking chair is constructed for dependence, and independence. Both are necessary to free the legs to move forward, and back. We depend on this. I will be dependent at some time. Now I will search the wind sounds, and the bee’s hum, for a dependence bundled inside independence. Independence is learned, recognized, honored, and coveted. My grandchildren now wrestle with home, and finding their home—in themselves and the world, like me, like everyone.
Home Tombow
I can depend on the world to move me through it on this journey. I will do it with as much independence as I can muster, choosing to live in the home I inhabit at any one time, and keeping the micro-home under my bony skeleton, stringy muscle, and inside these viscous fluids, safe and nurtured.
Jena Strong, Burlington, Vermont
Late last night, the cat got herself all tangled up in a plastic shopping bag. She was completely panicked and thrashing about, but all we could hear were inexplicable thuds and crashes coming from the basement. Greg went down and saw what was happening, removed the butchered bag from around her paws, and watched her take off for upstairs, seemingly traumatized.
Pearl, too, did some thrashing this morning. I was attempting to change her diaper and get her dressed on my bed, where it seems most everything in our house happens (or doesn't happen, as the case may have been on a recent late-night near-miss occasion when a certain small person appeared in the darkness at an inopportune moment), and she was having none of it.
Instead, she was writhing, twisting, squirming and screaming, as I stubbornly wrestled and struggled and battled and fought with her determined little package.
Then she used a word. She used a word and she told me what she wanted.
"NAKED! NAKED! NAKED!"
"Oh, you want to be naked, Pearlie? OK. You can be naked."
And I tell you, her demeanor changed instantly. She stopped yelling. She stopped wriggling. She stopped resisting. And then she said, "Dressed, Mama," lying there compliantly and waiting for me to put on her diaper and clothes.
Oh, to be able to say what we want. And to be acknowledged, seen, and given permission to be exactly where we are, as we are, how we are, what we are, without demand or expectation; these change everything. Quite suddenly, we find ourselves yielding, considering the other side. We open. We soften. We exchange. We change.
Somehow old news like this becomes profound and simple and enlightening when the messenger is so new.
Motherhood: One minute I'm negotiating a midnight standoff with a 40-pound bed hijacker, and the next a two-year-old is teaching me the heart and soul and blood and bones of conflict resolution.
Today, our eight-year anniversary of moving to Burlington, Greg and I met up at noon and walked down to Waterfront Park. We walked slowly. We had planned on taking a lunchtime yoga class, but even that felt like a "should" when really what we needed was to do nothing together. So we walked on the bike path along the lake, we sat on a swinging bench and rocked, the cool air reminding us that spring is a long-time-coming in these parts, these parts that have become home, these parts where our babies were born, where we were in some ways born again, too.
Born again? Yes, me. Yes, him. We were not fully ourselves yet eight years ago, and yet we were as fully ourselves as we could have been on that May Day in 2000. Today, we are also as real, as complete, as ourselves as we know how to be. But I wonder, I am so curious to know, what will the next eight years hold? What will I look back on in 2016 (?!) and see as self-evident? It's like a story I can't wait to keep reading. Or writing.
My friend and inspirer Jennifer sent me a YouTube video last weekend of Steve Jobs giving a graduation speech at Stanford a few years ago. He spoke eloquently about connecting the dots, and how we can only do this looking back in time, not forward. We look back, and we see; we see the way the decisions fell into each other like nesting dolls, we see friendships we forged and others forgotten. My God, if I'm not careful, this post is going to become a graduation speech.
But looking ahead, we don't know. All we can do is be here, be aware, be awake to whatever is happening. And what's happening is that we are beginning to think about getting our bed back. We're marveling at the ways in which our kids are our teachers. We're emptying the dishwasher and we're loading the dishwasher and we're emptying our minds and we're loading up on faith, yet again, that things are as they should be, that everything's going to "work out" just fine if we keep going towards the light, keep coming out from beneath the shadows of fear and separation and judgment, keep knowing the Universe loves us, just freakin' loves us so much just as we love the children who weren't yet born, not even conceived, eight years ago.
This is all. This is where I am. This is where we are, walking together by the water, looking out at the soft grays so inviting over the mountains, feeling grateful, swinging on a bench, faces facing the strengthening sun, soaking it up, soaking it in, giving over to the dot we're in now, that which envelopes us, delivering news old and new this very moment, and this one, and this one, and this.
Adele Schmalenberger
Ojai, California
In 1980 my parents sold their house, our home, my home. I sat in the yard with my cat in my lap and said to him to take a long look as it was to be ours no more. It was a perfect day with the sun shining merrily in its big blue home. But back on the ground, in the chair, with the cat, I was losing my first and only home.
I was 29 at the time and married to my high school sweet heart. But I see now that I had not transferred my sense of home to our house. And even now at 56, married to my second husband and father of my son, I find that I am still homeless. Oh to be sure there is a house, a yard, a chair and a cat.
But where are the rituals and the secret places? My husband has no special drawer in which he keeps the mementos of his life as my father did. There is no sewing machine in the hall available for all kinds of frippery and repairs. Ancestors do not peer from the walls. No board games are played in the living room to while away the Sunday hours accompanied by laughter and hot chocolate.
And then there were the wild places where I held court with the horny toads, king snakes, road runners and quail. Lizards and blue jays were my companions as living in the boonies meant one had to be content with the creatures, great and small, which passed through my homeland.
High in the branches of avocado and pepper trees I made castles in the sky while the bushes of the Chaparral served as forts and lairs and hidey-holes. These were my first attempts at home building. Clearly the desire was there to create, so why have I only ever since lived in houses and not a home?
My mother was the Queen of all she surveyed in that first home of mine. She has gone on to be the Queen of the all the other homes she has ruled as well. But I have only been the Queen of my Chaparral forts and pepper tree castles.
It is time now to plant my flag and declare that I am not just the laundress, cook, maid, gardener, bookkeeper, decorator and bottle-washer, but the Queen of her domain, her home. Since the King is in his counting house night and day while the not-so-young Prince only leaves his internet realm to eat, the cat and I are free to create what we will.
I wonder how long it will be before they notice my crown.
Bill Ellis, Spokane, Washington
When the contest was announced I was immediately drawn to it because even after almost two years I still miss Bend (Oregon) and the people there very much. As I began to ponder how to write about the place I miss so much I realized that Bend is not sufficient by itself to evoke the essence of home to me. Having lived in seven different places in six different counties over a forty-five year time span I discovered that home for me is Oregon, all of it. So here goes. (With some channeling of James Joyce)
Home is the numbfootmaking cold of the Pacific at Newport, and the honey sweetened tea of the Sylvia Beach Hotel where a good book is only for those moments when I leave off staring at the oh-so-breathtaking storm outside.
Home is saddle between the North and Middle Sister where I once watched the cumulous clouds try ever-so-hard to sweep over the rime coated Cascade summits, and those women wouldn’t let them, for they were enjoying the beautiful sunny day down in Bend, and I knew then that mountains can love the weather too.
Home is Little Hyatt Lake where two teenaged boys caught small trout, told big stories, and wished, and wished and wished for what could not be, but it did not matter because life had bestowed a moment when adolescent fantasies caused no pain and existence was as smooth as the windless water surface of the lake.
Home is Powell’s, right there on Burnside, where time is measured not in hours but in the number of books browsed, and you know you have had a wonderful day even if you don’t buy a single one, and where reading the people is just as fun as reading books anyway.
Home is Autzen stadium where for a few days each Fall I get to wear yellow and green, and care so passionately about a children’s game, and even get to be that child again who had real heroes, so that once upon a time becomes right now.
Home is the cemetery at Cove, a tiny town outside of La Grande, where they still have real gravestones which tell the story of great love, great grief, great hopes and achievements, where the care given to the dead proves how much they value life.
Home is the straight road stretch of I-80 out of Arlington, and the gas station at Boardman that has the two little restaurants right next to it, and the school where my dog Gabby gets to stretch her Corgi tiny legs after being in the car for a few hours, and feel so good and free in the grass.
Home is Austin Junction right where it meets highway seven and you go down the winding road to Baker City, always deer watchful and ready to slow down so that both you and the deer get to where you want to go.
Home is Crater Lake in May when one day the fog was so thick that I couldn’t see the water, but it didn’t matter because the view of the fog in the caldera was so rich and rare and I knew I would never see this again; what a blessing.
Home is a thousand places I have been between the Ocean and the Snake, between the Columbia and the California border, but it is all one place: Oregon, where forever I will have a home, forever be home, and forever know what home truly is.
Southwestern Oregon river image by Rozy Arno
Maria Hodkins, Paonia, Colorado
Home...
The home fires are burning, burning, where my heart is, where my hum is, where my head lies at rest on my pillow in the tired night...home is my solace from the small, occasionally cruel, disheartening workaday world of politics and territory. It’s a place to stumble in the dark without hurting myself. Home is where I hang my things like old calico prints on the walls of my heart. My pots and pans surround me like sherpas, nodding when the pot rack swings to the demands of my cooking. My spice jars escort me in my magic caravan of the kitchen; their exotic aromas letting me travel with all the comforts of home. My earrings dangle on a board, whispering of stones, and tribes, and epochs within my grasp. My writer's bulletin board burgeons with quotes and images, coaxing me, soothing me with the Wise Ones' voices. My cherished art hangs on the wall, embalmed under glass, from the sweet hands of my sons and my own raw endeavors in the field. My things are my icons; my home is my temple--for performing the rituals of place. It is a place for flowers, candles, music, for sautéing garlic and onions, for feasting on food and life-talk. My home is soft, vibrant, colorful, textural, with a tasteful disorder, and every corner is a mother hovering over her brood of raw materials for creating.
Tania Crawford, Tumalo, Oregon
My Mom used to be able to talk...that was years ago, before the "Parkinson’s-like syndrome" robbed her of that ability.
When I was 25 and going through a terrible divorce, she told me the story of how, when I was a small child, she caught me crying in the corner of my room. She said through the sobs the only thing she could make out were the words "Mommy, I just want to go home". She said her words, "Honey, you ARE home", only made me cry harder.
I had no memory of that time but as soon as she told me the story, an enormous sense of relief came over me. There had been this aching, unidentifiable hole inside me for as long as I could remember. Until I heard this story, I just thought I was somehow faulty -- somehow "not good enough". Finally, though, this feeling of being an outsider in a town where I was fifth generation, this 'I have to be incredibly busy or else my thoughts will eat me' revealed itself...it was simply the longing for home. Naming it, however, didn't necessarily mean changing it.
Years passed and the behaviors I had developed to compensate for feeling disconnected from home continued to dominate my life. There were all sorts of bad relationships, abusive jobs, friends who used me and whom I used until one day, I'd had enough. I quit. Just like that. I still didn't have a clue where home was. I had just grown completely weary of looking for it in all the wrong places.
My initial response was to get in the car and go looking for it. I had no idea where I was going, what I was going to do or how long I'd be gone. I just had to go. I ended-up in a place called Butler Wash in Southern Utah. My first night there happened to be Friday, May 13th. I was sitting on a red butte doing nothing more than breathing when the biggest, brightest moon began rising and, all of a sudden, Home found me. The awe of the moment broke through the illusion of separateness. As the moon's enormous shadow reached me, I became part of the rocks, the stars, the air, the wonder...in that moment, there was truly only 'One'. I had just experienced the place I was crying for as a child and I was forever changed.
Since that fateful night, I've had other wonderful experiences of Home. Like the time I was floating naked in a natural hot spring. Every atom of my being had let go into total relaxation. The door to home once again opened and this time I was graced by getting to stay for more than just a single exhale. This time, time stopped and hours could have been moments and moments might have been hours.
Naming and knowing my true home has brought me closer to my home on the planet...the one I experience from inside my skin and from inside my everyday life. It's the home from which I inhabit the moments of THIS life. It's the home that feeds me daily and the home that is only experienced from a place of acceptance -- acceptance, first and foremost, of my own being.
These days, I wake up at home and fall asleep at home and carry home with me where ever I go. There are those beautiful flickers in time though where the realization of home is so very acute. Like the other night when I was playing with my old dog and loving her so much, I wept. And, the time two months ago, when I was sitting in front of the fire journaling about how sad it is that Spring is coming. The next think I knew, my hand had written a short poem on the yellow-lined paper: "Winter is when the mystery is most alive...it dances in the flames of fires, swirls in the juiciness of Zinfandels, floats on the edges of snowflakes and wakes up slowly to January sunrises."
I find home so often in my utter appreciation of the "little things". Red-leaf lettuce from my garden. My boyfriend making a silly joke. Cutting across my own reflection on my water-ski. The sound of the hand-tuned wind chimes outside my bedroom window. A voice mail from my five year old nephew. An uncensored conversation with a dear friend. I know I'm home when I'm present enough to truly cherish the things that are so easy to miss in a distracted life.
Through the years of cultivating home, I have discovered the importance of connection -- connection to myself, to another, to Mother/Father God. The transformative, 'capital H' Home always seems closest when I'm in communion with all three simultaneously.
Even though that's still somewhat rare, the 'small h' home fills the longing I used to know so well. It's the knowing where home is and the tending to life there that colors my life with authenticity, that makes all the conditions of my life okay and that makes ordinary extraordinary.
My search for home can be summarized with the words I wrote that glorious night when Home first found me:
I sit in the shadow of the rising moon....
Wondering....
What would my life be like I had never denied, disowned, or disconnected from any part of myself, my body or my spirit?
If I had never felt the shame of being human, if I had never identified with unlovable and unworthy and if I had never worshiped at the altar of my ego.
If I recognized my shadow and all of its secrets as sacred and had embraced the darkness with love?
What would my life be like then?
Now, almost twenty years later, I'm beginning to be able to answer that question: I would always be Home.
Red rocks of Utah and the McKenzie River in Central Oregon
Michelle Meech, Bend, Oregon
Impressions of Home
I see the snow-capped peaks from the plane. My study of them enables me to know exactly where it is from 30,000 ft. Even though I’m just passing by, the mountains are enough to make my heart leap in greeting.
I hear the notes of Michael Hedges’ guitar. My heart expands as I lay on my bed, my head rolls to look out the window to see the cherry blossoms against the bright blue springtime sky.
I’m sitting across the table from my friend during lunch, chatting about things that are close to our hearts with an ease that flows from the center of my being. There is no rush and no expectations. His eyes are good at smiling.
I locate myself in the music, this flowing, lyrical, melodic, waltzing rhythm that moves my body for me. My mind is just along for the ride as my limbs, my torso, my hips express this immediate moment in its response to God.
I sit looking at the computer screen, feeling the anxiety/irritation/disdain begin their subtle climb up my spine, the stink starting to infect my brain. Something whispers ‘breathe’ and I respond with a deep intake. My vision widens, my capacity expands and my belly shifts as my feet feel the ground again.
Marching in ordinary time along the green ribbon, I patiently await the blue season of expectation when the birth happens again and again. The liturgical cycle spirals me through my work and the flashing neon sign of Christ says, “Always open.”
Her garden breathes all the fragrant color of her soul. I’m savoring her spinach lasagna and her wise belly presence. Her heart is my heart is.
From somewhere in my sleep, I hear a gentle, rolling melody sing, “No matter which road you take from here, all roads will lead you home.” And then Souxsie and the Banshees ask Prudence to come out and play. An impish grin.
The invitation is always there to dive completely in with the giggling, gracious, unexpectant heart sister-home-womb-house. Liminal-space thoughts speak directly from our souls at the oddest hours.
Kneeling before the cross on Good Friday, I feel God’s call to give myself up again. I weep in the overwhelming example of Christ to give up absolutely everything he took himself to be. I am humble and raw.
I walk by the dying, dry pine tree and even in this marine climate, I smell the dry trails that rest along my river. I breathe in deeply everytime I pass it and for a second, I hear the pounding rush of her waters.
I stand there, hands on hips… pissed about whatever it is that I think is stopping me and tripping me up when I try to move. My anger directed at the very core of who I am. I’m tired and my body is too heavy to be moving like this. I feel the audible click of the paradigm shift and suddenly everything is perfect. My belly rests into the flow.
A lush, soft circle of pillows sits underneath the seats of shining hearts. These voices sing to Shiva the Destroyer, to Krishna the Protector, to Rama Sita the Both-And of God. A Bhakti-Bliss milkshake.
I look up from my computer screen and see the small painting that reminds me of the quiet wind as the golden hills shift their mood and the black eyes of the susans, lined up along the side of the road, patiently watch the speeding car parade.
Her sing-song voice of unconditional love… his impish, enthusiastic exclamations of laughter… her sweet, worldly kindness and care… his quiet, immense, hugging hospitality… her profound faith in the goodness of all people… his shyly intense engagement… all these hearts doing their work. I’m humbled in their presence.
The circle shares the pieces of itself like a pie might if it laughed and cried and sang and sat in silent reverence for the heart expressions of all those sweet-toothed seekers.
My body moves through its own preventative measures. My soul opens up and I see so much beauty that it overflows through me… absolutely and unapologetically abundant. And I know Adyashanti is right… “Love was never meant to be contained.”
This christ
This fire, this song
This bend in the river
This garden, this house
These beating hearts, oh these gorgeous-red-messy hearts
This breath
This dance
This home.
Terri Good, Buffalo, New York
Home is where I am at, in this moment in time.
It can be a peaceful, quiet, and contemplative.
It can be stressful, crazy, and with too much to do in this consumer world of do, do, do.
Home is where I am at, because I have learned that there is good and beauty in every place.
I only have to remind myself that home is where I make it, to give thanks for what I have, that I am blessed for all that surrounds me.
No matter where I am, no matter the time or circumstances.
Home is where I make it.
Rita Clagett, Crawford, Colorado
House-made-home
Something is happening to me. After living in the boonies for fifteen years I’m changing. The other day I pulled up to the county road at the top of my driveway and an SUV stopped in the curve of the dirt road, a man jumped out and came toward my car. Years ago I’d have been nervous, irritated that he’d stopped in a blind curve, fearful he meant harm. Instead I smiled and waved, and he asked if this was the way to the National Park.
How many cats can you get on one windowsill?
Yesterday I found myself at the Book Brigade, standing in a line with 54 other people in the hot sun of the first day of summer, slinging boxes of books down the line from the door of the old library across the parking lot to the door of the new library. On one side of me were two ebullient Evangelical ladies, one waving her arms over her head crying “Let the angels be with them, let the angels be with them, by Jesus’ will!” after the other had told us her children were driving through a tornado zone. On the other side of me was a sullen teenage boy whose feet seemed glued to the gravel, forcing me and the Republican woman on the other side of him to each take a few steps to pass the boxes. “Take a step!” I finally sang to him as the rest of us swung with the music. He did, he smiled. I had a terrific time.
Catahoola Leopard Hounds peering into the canyon on my property
A few months ago I was out of town, where home used to be, where I grew up, and I needed to get some money to my friend Suzi to pay my bills. It couldn’t have been simpler. I called the bank, asked the teller to transfer money from my account to Suzi’s, and it was done. No security checks, no passwords, I didn’t even know Suzi’s account number, just gave her name. “Sure, Rita,” said the teller, “no problem.” This week I needed to drive to the city for an unexpected doctor visit, which I mentioned to a friend across the valley who’d happened to call. I hadn’t seen her in years, and she volunteered to ride along.
A juniper snag version of a hot tin roof
Though grasshoppers have once again decimated my vegetable crop, the flowers bloom profusely in the garden, and tiger swallowtails flit through the blooms and scents with a variety of bees. I have spent months pulling weeds. Friends come over each week bearing food and enjoy the house and yard I have built from clay and seeds. All these are reasons that living here has come to be comfortable, to be home.
More reasons, and deeper, lie in the forest where I built my house. This morning I wore my reading glasses on top of my head to walk the dogs, so that when I passed the hummingbird nest I could peer inside and see the babies as more than the pea-sized blobs they were the other day when they hatched. A couple of weeks ago I paused in my walk to sit in one of the lawn chairs I scattered through the woods years ago, and as I sat I became aware of a hummingbird zipping nervously about in the tree across the path from me. With that dawning awareness that imparts certainty I knew she had a nest nearby; I slowly turned my head, and right there, a foot from my face, was her little plastered nest suspended from a limb. For days I saw eggs when I peeked in in passing, then finally tiny balls of life. This morning, little, I mean little, gaping mouths, silently squawking for food.
The day before that, the dogs spooked a nighthawk off the ground under a juniper near the far turn in our morning loop. Something about the way it flew, almost upright at first, caused me to investigate, and there, not in a nest or even a depression, but right out on the forest floor, lay two speckled eggs the size of my thumb’s first joint. Rounding the loop at the canyon rim, I paused to offer thanks at the Ancient One, a thousand-year-old juniper that has stood watch over the place I call home for a hundred human generations. Thanks for the sighting of new, wild life, thanks for my health, thanks for my friends, thanks for the fertile, friendly ground of my community in which I have planted my roots and at last begun to bloom; thanks for my home.
West Elk Mountains at sunrise. Same mountains during early autumn. Looking down at Needle Rock.
Special thanks to Patti Digh, Dave Pollard, Carl McColman, Julia Harris, Karen Crone, Gayle Roberts, Ella Moss and any others who posted a link or article to their blogs to help promote this exercise.
Now...who's yo' mama? Inviting your comments on any of the above entries, or others that you liked in the series...
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where's home?
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In this, the final offering of submissions for the 'Where's Home' exercise, we explore carrying home with us as if we were a turtle or snail. We hope you enjoy submissions from Terri Good, Ella Moss, Karen Cox, Rita Clagett and Mo Scott. Thanks to each of you for these nutrient-rich entries!
Winners for this category: 'we carry home with us like a turtle'...are Terri Good and Rita Clagett. They will receive heirloom wildflower seeds for the area they call home.
A big bow the bloggers and sites that have and are promoting the 'Where's Home?' exercise: Patti Digh, Dave Pollard, Julia Harris, Carl McColman, Carl McColman, Karen Crone, Gayle Roberts, Ella Moss and any others who posted a link or article to their blogs to help promote this exercise.
Later this week, the 5th and final post will be a compilation of the winning entries from all 4 categories. We want y'all to let us know which ones spoke to you and made your heart sing!
Here's the final entries...but not the last words on this subject, as you might suspect!
flickr photo: The Turtle by linda yvonne
Co-WINNER FOR THIS CATEGORY: Terri Good lives in Buffalo, New York but has lived in other places around the world.
Home is where I am at, in this moment in time.
It can be a peaceful, quiet, and contemplative.
It can be stressful, crazy, and with too much to do in this consumer world of do, do, do.
Home is where I am at, because I have learned that there is good and beauty in every place.
I only have to remind myself that home is where I make it, to give thanks for what I have, that I am blessed for all that surrounds me.
No matter where I am, no matter the time or circumstances.
Home is where I make it.
flikr photo: Aegina Greece by AdamosMaximus
Ella Moss lives in New York City
Home, of course, is where we belong. Home is something that gives us that indelible feeling of comfort and ease.
Is it a place? Not necessarily. A place, no matter how beautiful or familiar, can still leave us feeling lonely, if it is empty, or make us uncomfortable, if populated with disagreeable people.
So home is, probably, people that we feel we belong with. These are the people with whom we can disrobe our soul and not feel naked. These are the people who know us through and through and still love us, and we repay them with the same.
Or, maybe, home is that special soul in our lives, whose presence engulfs us with comfort and warmth. If we are lucky to know such person, we would feel at home whenever and wherever we can hold his or her hand, be quiet together or laugh together at whatever silly comes to mind.
I left my country long time ago. Then, 11 years later, a month after the honeymoon with my first husband, I went back for a visit. It took 3 days for me to re-orient myself. I actually went right past the house I grew up in. It was my uncle who stopped me, and took me up to the communal flat on the fifth floor, which used to be my home. An old lady opened the door. "Oh, my! Ella!” she exclaimed, embracing me. It took a while for me to surmise that she was the mother of two kids who were my childhood playmates. She has not seen me since I was 10 years old and managed to recognize me 20 years later!
As she was chatting, filling me in on what happened since I moved away, I was finally slipping into the Familiar we call "Home". From that moment on, I was to enjoy my Motherland for the next month. I was so happy there, my new husband got afraid that I might not come back! And it's true, if I was not happily married then, I might have chosen to stay.
But, at the end, it was he, who was my home then. So I flew back into my husband's arms.
I never went back to Russia since. My family and friends all moved away. So coming back would be staring at houses filled with my memories but inhabited by complete strangers. So it is no longer my home.
Now I live in a beautiful apartment in New York. But as much as I like it, I can easily envision some other place I could live in.
In fact, just recently, I went back to the yoga retreat in the Bahamas, which I have not visited for more than 5 years, took a dip in the ocean, and exhaled as if I finally went home... It felt so good, so familiar, as if that water was where I truly belonged! Or was it That Beach? Or was it the Yoga Retreat behind me? I do enjoy that place immensely, coming back every now and then when my batteries need recharging. But living there all the time? I don't think so. They don't allow coffee there.
I know I cannot envision anyplace I would be living at without my son. He is my home now. But, one day, he will move away... Would I become homeless then? Of course, not!
I carry my Home, wherever I am, like a snail! Or, rather, He carries me in His arms as I move through my days. I feel His Presence always. I talk to Him whenever I want. And, when I quiet my thoughts, I hear His Silence, and we both smile with joy. He talks to me all the time too. He talks through other people, signs, feelings, dreams, "coincidences", and, sometimes, even whispers words in my ear. He touches me with sunshine or rain, plays with my hair on windy days, and always leaves me little presents wherever I look: my orchid's blooms, a passerby's smile, a rainbow in the sky... When I am down, he makes me laugh, whether by sending a clown into the train car I am riding in, or by giving something silly to me to read, or by sending a friend my way. When I am scared, he always finds a way to remind me that every fear is "a monster under the bed". He is my True Home, because he knows me better than anyone, and still loves me more than anyone; because, as people and places change in my life, He is always here, the Nearest and the Dearest.
flickr photo: 'Look at me' by marikp1018
Karen Cox lives in Bend, Oregon
I love being asked the question, "Where's home?" because I love reflecting on the answers that come up for me.
I am pleased to find that the first idea of home that came for me was a place I carry within me. That place feels like being comfortable in my own skin and "being comfortable where ever I am". Knowing that I belong wherever I wish to be. It feels like a safe place where all I need to do is to show up, engage and be present, and tell my truth. Then I began to wonder where within me do I carry home? It feels like a Spirit place that is heart centered where I feel most vulnerable and most empowered. That paradoxical description, for me, is a very healthy perspective on how I most desire to live my life. I have come to be home on my journey to more wholeness through some devastating losses, reality checks, grief work, healing of the wound ...with a constant grace and joy that I still want to be here...at Home...within this body, this mind, this psycho-spiritual sphere with others on the planet.
So at least part of where is home is: right here, right now, inside of me.
There are many other parts of home...walking my dog in the forest feels like home. Being in nature, around water and trees and wildflowers and wildlife. In the snow and sun, feels like a big piece of centering home to me. I can leave any worries totally behind to enjoy the smells, sights and sounds of nature. Riding my bike, skiing, swimming at my favorite lake all feel like home to me. When I camp out and sit around the fire, I feel I am home and that all is right with my world.
Being connected to others feels like home. My mother, my children, my grandchildren...we all have a bond that is loving and strong and I can drop into my authentic self and be at home. My extended family of cousins, dwindling aunties and uncles that have loved me since my birth...they all create home for me. My German Shepherd Kai is my constant companion has created more of a physical home for me. She is always ready to joyfully greet me when I return home. Always more than ready to go where I go...happily.
I include a few especially close friends that I can share my life and theirs at very deep levels creates peaceful haven for me. Those constant friends that I can call and say "help!" and they are ready to drop into wherever I need to go...That connection with others extends to my church community, my new friends at Fire Circle that are incredibly honest about how life is for them has created a safe home. My ever evolving, widening circle of friends that share from their hearts, that can tell me of their questions and answers and not-knowing form a safe place for me "to be". The Yoga family that meets weekly in my home to bless the space. My hiking group that hikes year round and has for ten years, have become home for me as a place I can ask sometimes practical questions and receive a plethora of possible answers. This group also shares their joys and sorrows and likes to celebrate together.
Last of all, is my physical home: My house... My home, for me, is a safe place: although I live alone I am never frightened. My home feels like a sanctuary...a place that reflects who I am spiritually with many small altars sprinkled around. I have had a desire to have it feel cozy for me and also inviting others in. This is a place of ease and rest for me. When I need that alone quiet time, it is there for me. The colors and things there reflect what I am passionate about...reminders from places I have been and things dear to me. I also feel a responsibility to maintain the home and yard so that it continues to support me in the physical ways I desire. My garden work is like therapy for my soul and I work to maintain a comfortable place that I can sit out and see the night sky as well as the garden that surrounds me.
What a blessing to discover all the things that HOME conjures up for me. It helps me to understand and feel gratitude for all the different venues that support me in my journey and feel like a safe place: home.
[Note: This is Beth's beloved shepherd, Jaz
near Moab, Utah a few weeks before her death in 2004.]
Co-WINNER FOR THIS CATEGORY: Rita Clagett lives off the grid near Crawford, Colorado. Rita is a guest blogger on the Virtual Tea House.
House-made-home
[Editorial note: Although this piece seems to be about the amazing space that Rita has attached to in western Colorado, it's really more about what the land, animals and plants have done to her...so I put it in the category of 'carrying it with us like a turtle.]
Something is happening to me. After living in the boonies for fifteen years I’m changing. The other day I pulled up to the county road at the top of my driveway and an SUV stopped in the curve of the dirt road, a man jumped out and came toward my car. Years ago I’d have been nervous, irritated that he’d stopped in a blind curve, fearful he meant harm. Instead I smiled and waved, and he asked if this was the way to the National Park.
How many cats can you get on one windowsill?
Yesterday I found myself at the Book Brigade, standing in a line with 54 other people in the hot sun of the first day of summer, slinging boxes of books down the line from the door of the old library across the parking lot to the door of the new library. On one side of me were two ebullient Evangelical ladies, one waving her arms over her head crying “Let the angels be with them, let the angels be with them, by Jesus’ will!” after the other had told us her children were driving through a tornado zone. On the other side of me was a sullen teenage boy whose feet seemed glued to the gravel, forcing me and the Republican woman on the other side of him to each take a few steps to pass the boxes. “Take a step!” I finally sang to him as the rest of us swung with the music. He did, he smiled. I had a terrific time.
Catahoola Leopard hounds peering into the canyon on my property
A few months ago I was out of town, where home used to be, where I grew up, and I needed to get some money to my friend Suzi to pay my bills. It couldn’t have been simpler. I called the bank, asked the teller to transfer money from my account to Suzi’s, and it was done. No security checks, no passwords, I didn’t even know Suzi’s account number, just gave her name. “Sure, Rita,” said the teller, “no problem.” This week I needed to drive to the city for an unexpected doctor visit, which I mentioned to a friend across the valley who’d happened to call. I hadn’t seen her in years, and she volunteered to ride along.
A juniper snag version of a hot tin roof
Though grasshoppers have once again decimated my vegetable crop, the flowers bloom profusely in the garden, and tiger swallowtails flit through the blooms and scents with a variety of bees. I have spent months pulling weeds. Friends come over each week bearing food and enjoy the house and yard I have built from clay and seeds. All these are reasons that living here has come to be comfortable, to be home.
More reasons, and deeper, lie in the forest where I built my house. This morning I wore my reading glasses on top of my head to walk the dogs, so that when I passed the hummingbird nest I could peer inside and see the babies as more than the pea-sized blobs they were the other day when they hatched. A couple of weeks ago I paused in my walk to sit in one of the lawn chairs I scattered through the woods years ago, and as I sat I became aware of a hummingbird zipping nervously about in the tree across the path from me. With that dawning awareness that imparts certainty I knew she had a nest nearby; I slowly turned my head, and right there, a foot from my face, was her little plastered nest suspended from a limb. For days I saw eggs when I peeked in in passing, then finally tiny balls of life. This morning, little, I mean little, gaping mouths, silently squawking for food.
The day before that, the dogs spooked a nighthawk off the ground under a juniper near the far turn in our morning loop. Something about the way it flew, almost upright at first, caused me to investigate, and there, not in a nest or even a depression, but right out on the forest floor, lay two speckled eggs the size of my thumb’s first joint. Rounding the loop at the canyon rim, I paused to offer thanks at the Ancient One, a thousand-year-old juniper that has stood watch over the place I call home for a hundred human generations. Thanks for the sighting of new, wild life, thanks for my health, thanks for my friends, thanks for the fertile, friendly ground of my community in which I have planted my roots and at last begun to bloom; thanks for my home.
West Elk Mountains at sunrise. Same mountains during early autumn. Looking down at Needle Rock.
Mo Scott is a native of Bend, Oregon
When I was little home was a house on the Westside where my family lived. A place of gathering and celebration. The place my older siblings who'd moved out, called home. This place was home for a long time even after I left home myself and had my own house.
Then as my children were little, home became the place we played and slept and laughed. The house we lived in together. It was in the feelings of being together, the warmth and oneness of love in my new family, my new home.
As I grew up in my adult life, home became a myriad of places. New places I'd visit. New places that held and welcomed me. I found home in ocean sides, tropical beaches, dark lush forests, desert rock outcroppings and the cozy beds of friends where we'd talk until sleep. Home seemed to be many places, with many people, a feeling of welcome and belonging.
Now home isn't really a place and it really isn't particular people. Home is a deep knowing. It is a knowing that anywhere I go I have within me the ability to be home. (Home in my own shoes.) That all I need to know of love and safety and welcome is inside of me, and when I recognize this in the place I am and in the people I am with, I can settle down anywhere and know I am home. Home is where I find love and acceptance, comfort and care. Home is every where I go and no where in particular.
Water gushing out of the hillside from an underground river to help form the Metolius River, Central Oregon
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In this, the 3rd of 4 posts unveiling the delicious entries for the 'Where's Home?' contest/exercise, the submissions of Tania Crawford, Jodi Yaver, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Candace Brey and Michelle Meech are about how home is searching for us! There are some remarkable expressions here...big bows to each of you for submitting.
The winners for this category are: Tania Crawford and Michelle Meech. They will receive heirloom wildflower seeds for the place their hearts call home.
Again, loving thanks to the bloggers and sites that have and are promoting the 'Where's Home?' exercise: Patti Digh, Dave Pollard, Carl McColman, Julia Harris, Karen Crone, Gayle Roberts, Ella Moss and any others who posted a link or article to their blogs to help promote this exercise.
The 4th post of submissions will be: 'Where's Home?: We carry it with us like a turtle'.
The 5th and final post, sometime later this week, will consist of all the winning posts. You get to choose your overall favorites!
Co-WINNER FOR THIS CATEGORY: Tania Crawford, Tumalo, Oregon
My Mom used to be able to talk...that was years ago, before the "Parkinson’s-like syndrome" robbed her of that ability.
When I was 25 and going through a terrible divorce, she told me the story of how, when I was a small child, she caught me crying in the corner of my room. She said through the sobs the only thing she could make out were the words "Mommy, I just want to go home". She said her words, "Honey, you ARE home", only made me cry harder.
I had no memory of that time but as soon as she told me the story, an enormous sense of relief came over me. There had been this aching, unidentifiable hole inside me for as long as I could remember. Until I heard this story, I just thought I was somehow faulty -- somehow "not good enough". Finally, though, this feeling of being an outsider in a town where I was fifth generation, this 'I have to be incredibly busy or else my thoughts will eat me' revealed itself...it was simply the longing for home. Naming it, however, didn't necessarily mean changing it.
Years passed and the behaviors I had developed to compensate for feeling disconnected from home continued to dominate my life. There were all sorts of bad relationships, abusive jobs, friends who used me and whom I used until one day, I'd had enough. I quit. Just like that. I still didn't have a clue where home was. I had just grown completely weary of looking for it in all the wrong places.
My initial response was to get in the car and go looking for it. I had no idea where I was going, what I was going to do or how long I'd be gone. I just had to go. I ended-up in a place called Butler Wash in Southern Utah. My first night there happened to be Friday, May 13th. I was sitting on a red butte doing nothing more than breathing when the biggest, brightest moon began rising and, all of a sudden, Home found me. The awe of the moment broke through the illusion of separateness. As the moon's enormous shadow reached me, I became part of the rocks, the stars, the air, the wonder...in that moment, there was truly only 'One'. I had just experienced the place I was crying for as a child and I was forever changed.
Since that fateful night, I've had other wonderful experiences of Home. Like the time I was floating naked in a natural hot spring. Every atom of my being had let go into total relaxation. The door to home once again opened and this time I was graced by getting to stay for more than just a single exhale. This time, time stopped and hours could have been moments and moments might have been hours.
Naming and knowing my true home has brought me closer to my home on the planet...the one I experience from inside my skin and from inside my everyday life. It's the home from which I inhabit the moments of THIS life. It's the home that feeds me daily and the home that is only experienced from a place of acceptance -- acceptance, first and foremost, of my own being.
These days, I wake up at home and fall asleep at home and carry home with me where ever I go. There are those beautiful flickers in time though where the realization of home is so very acute. Like the other night when I was playing with my old dog and loving her so much, I wept. And, the time two months ago, when I was sitting in front of the fire journaling about how sad it is that Spring is coming. The next think I knew, my hand had written a short poem on the yellow-lined paper: "Winter is when the mystery is most alive...it dances in the flames of fires, swirls in the juiciness of Zinfandels, floats on the edges of snowflakes and wakes up slowly to January sunrises."
I find home so often in my utter appreciation of the "little things". Red-leaf lettuce from my garden. My boyfriend making a silly joke. Cutting across my own reflection on my water-ski. The sound of the hand-tuned wind chimes outside my bedroom window. A voice mail from my five year old nephew. An uncensored conversation with a dear friend. I know I'm home when I'm present enough to truly cherish the things that are so easy to miss in a distracted life.
Through the years of cultivating home, I have discovered the importance of connection -- connection to myself, to another, to Mother/Father God. The transformative, 'capital H' Home always seems closest when I'm in communion with all three simultaneously.
Even though that's still somewhat rare, the 'small h' home fills the longing I used to know so well. It's the knowing where home is and the tending to life there that colors my life with authenticity, that makes all the conditions of my life okay and that makes ordinary extraordinary.
My search for home can be summarized with the words I wrote that glorious night when Home first found me:
I sit in the shadow of the rising moon....
Wondering....
What would my life be like I had never denied, disowned, or disconnected from any part of myself, my body or my spirit?
If I had never felt the shame of being human, if I had never identified with unlovable and unworthy and if I had never worshiped at the altar of my ego.
If I recognized my shadow and all of its secrets as sacred and had embraced the darkness with love?
What would my life be like then?
Now, almost twenty years later, I'm beginning to be able to answer that question: I would always be Home.