The topic on my mind and heart today is about home, the feeling of belonging and what that inspires in us.
In my life journey, I have called many places “home”. Born in Southern California and lived there until I was 10, that was the only home I knew. I belonged there whether I was happily playing or not. I knew every inch of my front and back yard and most of the neighborhood. When my family moved to San Jose, the new family “home” did not feel like home at all. I remember thinking that it felt like a motel; a place you stay for a while before traveling on. And many years later, it would become my first purchase of real estate and my daughter’s home.
It’s been my experience to feel attached to my home. I want to take care of it and feel safe in it. I imagine it belongs to me as a sense of ownership. In my six and a half decades of journey here, I have had 21 addresses, but not all of these felt like home. So what is it that gives us the feeling of home? Is it something that we get from the environment? Or something that we give? Or something else? And how much of our experience is based on a belief? And what about the Earth as our home?
One of my teachers, Tom Brown, Jr., was a person who considered the Earth his home. He would go into the wilderness of Nature and feel right at home; with nothing but the clothes on his back and maybe his knife; for a year or more! He was mentored by an Apache elder in the natural world, learned its rhythms, languages, and abundance of nurturing as well as its lessons about awareness. So with that in mind, maybe that applies to any home – investing in learning openly about the ways and language of the land and life in the place we are living. Would that also apply to the “home” of our physical body?
From the time we are born within our physical body in this physical world, we are attending to the balance that is needed to move, reach, and interact – on a physical level. Do you remember as a kid waking up and looking at your legs and feet, thinking they were different than the night before; bigger? Or bumping into things at home as if you weren’t familiar with your surroundings? As our body changes, so does our balance point! As I have experienced my knee pain and instability (torn meniscus), I am finding a new balance with my body and my physical world. And that balance, is a kind of belonging; it teaches us that belonging is not ownership just as loving is not ownership.
In a love relationship whether with a child or partner, we feel a belonging to each other. And on life’s journey we each are always continuing to evolve, change, and grow. Sometimes our healthy growth includes a new alignment or misalignment that can cause us to feel the pain of lose. Our grief is an indicator of our love. It does not erase the love. Loss, change and growth are necessary parts of this human journey. Understanding this can help us remember that the attempt to own or control will prevent us from our growth and add to our pain even more. It can also cause us to become brittle and weaken our life experience.
Acceptance. Gratitude. Appreciation. Awareness. These are our medicine for what ails us; that and song!
“This is home, where I belong.
In this breath. In this heart.
This is home, where I belong.
In this voice. In this song.”