Defining Home Inwardly Resonates Acutely
I listen to podcasts about writing and writers on my morning walk. There is always something to learn. This morning it was Cheryl Strayed speaking with Pico Iyer. Iyer said that as he traveled so much while still a young boy (and he continues to travel as a grown man), he had to define home inwardly. I so relate to that. Why do I relate to defining home inwardly?
Do I have to find reasons? How is it so? What relationship do I have with my inward home? I live in my head. I am isolated. I seek solitude. No one can hurt me. I am safe on my own. I don’t have to please people. No one demands anything of me. I can just be. I can ruminate. I can daydream. I can make choices for my own well-being. I can listen to the music I choose. I can eat when I want. I can eat what I want. I can read as long as I want. I can sleep as long as I want. I make sense alone and with ideas that come to me from those wise people who’ve gone before yet still remain and have touched my soul and informed my being. I have the freedom to focus on what gives me joy. Am I really defining home?
What is home, anyway?
What is home? Home is where I can be me. I surround myself with what matters. I have so much around me that doesn’t matter. I say Australia is my home. I say my house is my home. I wake up in the morning early and the sun is rising and filtering through the trees and shines golden in the glass tiles along the kitchen bench and also into the swimming pool cage working in glorious pink harmony with the terra-cotta colored concrete floor around the aqua colored water in the pool. It’s divine, almost like the sun filtering in through the stained glass windows in churches and cathedrals I’ve been awestruck by on my travels. The morning light is special. Is it that it holds the promise of a day ahead? Is it just the visual beauty, the warm glow? Note to self: read some poems on sunrises.
Does defining home inwardly imply contentment? A sufficiency? A satisfaction? Being at peace with oneself? Being at home inwardly acknowledges there are others in my life, relationships, and connections that matter and have shaped me. I draw upon those influences that have helped me to define my home inwardly with contentment. I am able to live with what I have and what matters to me. The days of competition, of worrying about what others may think are gone. There is wisdom in that. Defining my home inwardly is humility, surrender, joy, and simple openness to being here now. Defining home inwardly includes dreaming of more places, more knowledge, and experiences, developing relationships, and contributing to the world, from a place of feeling generous and kind and loving.
Defining home inwardly is seeking one’s inner truth and holding it, and turning it over to see all the facets it offers. It comes to me as a sphere, in fact, it comes to me as the earth seen from outer space. It’s beautiful to look at the earth from outer space. As I look more closely and deeper, I see shapes and patterns. I see colors, light, and dark. Textures. Contours. Peaks and troughs. Swirls, flow with soft and undefined borders. No hard edges. Everything is flowing swirling rhythmically. It’s harmonious. It hangs together in beauty.
Planet Earth is my home
The earth is my home. I belong on this planet and I hold this planet in my imagination. I am a miracle. I live among almost 7 billion miracles - that’s just counting the humans living on this planet - every single one is a miracle. Then I think about all other creatures and plants. They are all miracles. The life cycles of albatrosses and sea lions are beyond miracles. The wildflowers poking through the concrete are miracles.
Defining home inwardly is to be open to the miracle of the world in which we live. Our interaction comes from appreciation and love of what has come before, is present now, and what else is possible. It is inclusive of our inner and outer relationships. We need each other for the continuity of this miracle of life on this planet. Defining our homes inwardly offers the opportunity to sustain life with dignity, humility, and respect. Ubuntu - (Zulu) and I thou (Martin Buber) come to mind. I see you. I feel you. I love you.
