Home for Thanksgiving

“This is the bright home
in which I live,
this is where
I ask
my friends
to come,
this is where I want
to love all the things
it has taken me so long
to learn to love.

This is the temple
of my adult aloneness
and I belong
to that aloneness
as I belong to my life.

There is no house
like the house of belonging.”

-taken from The "House of Belonging" by David Whyte

I love the Seasons. Growing up in Central Texas, I became accustomed to hot and not so hot - a blending of “seasons” with little differentiation. Whether it was Thanksgiving or the Fourth of July, the flora looked roughly the same. At least one knew how to dress in the morning. I remember my first afternoon in Maryland six years ago when, after an interview for my current job, I went for a late October run in Rock Creek park. With childhood astonishment, I whooshed through the fiery orange and yellow crisp colored leaves wafting down in the crisp breeze trusting the ground beneath would meet my feet. I immediately phoned home with an ecstatic report about my first true Autumn experience. To this day, I find the extra time to walk into the Autumn woods as there is something special about my relationship to that time of the year. Yet, I find the time to honor each changing season.

For most of my life, I had been conditioned to follow the cycles of the sun, but I could sense my emotional body going through subtle seasonal shifts. In recent years I’ve been able to tune into these cycles with greater awareness and acceptance of the emotional changes within. I think I still had these rhythms in Texas, but they were more difficult to identify outside of labels like depression or agitation. I don’t struggle as much with the transitions and am learning more about the in between. And, when I’m feeling less rooted during those moments, It only takes a few minutes on my favorite trail near the Patapsco to bring me back into that natural rhythm of my body and breath. It’s simply beautiful to feel so connected, alive and part of something much larger that is also part of me.

On one of my recent walks, I was struggling with an unnamed tension inside and needed some time on the land. I was noticing the leaves had mostly fallen with the exception of the few last few holding on for one last view from above. It was the beginning of the end of my favorite season. I took in my surroundings and noticed, at what first appeared to be birds, but were actually bird’s nests. As the crisp air swept my cheek, I wondered how my avian friends were faring with their newly exposed surroundings. I wondered if they were reflecting on how just months ago they were surrounded by lush vegetation, the sweet song of crickets and peepers and the warm summer breeze whispering through the leaves at night. How serene and secure their home must have felt compared to this moment in stark contrast. I wondered if they had come to rely on their surrounding to protect their home and where they were now.

As I pressed on towards my home, I wondered if this tension inside of me was the season reminding me that I too might now rely less on my surroundings and possibly others to bring me the sense of security and home that I now need to find inside. I thought about how so many times we seek external comforts when our external world changes leaving us feeling ungrounded or unprotected. While everything outside of these woods was speeding up worrying about external trivial matters, rushing to shopping mall sales and holiday parties, everything inside is reminding us to come home.

This is the twelfth month on the medicine wheel referred to as The Long Snows Moon. In the final month of Autumn as we approach the Winter Solstice, the season reminds us that it is a good time to go inside for grounding, reflection, finding our own light, our own lushness, sweet song and warm breeze inside. It is there that we will remember our place of belonging and home.

• I am thankful for the Autumn leaves and the changing seasons,
• I am thankful for my connection to the Earth and the Mystery.
• I am thankful for my good health so that I may physically connect with the Land.
• I am thankful for the lessons of nature and the medicine wheel.
• I am thankful for home.
  

All is well.

Reflections of The Well

On November 22nd, many of us in the Ellicott City community gathered together to bid farewell to The Well, a place where we found and developed friendship with one another. It was a bittersweet occasion marking new beginnings for Amy and Lance and the ending of a space that many contributed to and received so much from over the last two years. Amy's song and Lance's "hey buddy" and hugs will be sorely missed.

Since I first heard that The Well was shutting its doors, my footsteps and heart have been a little heavier reflecting on the importance of the space in my life. As some around the fire were reflecting on what The Well had meant to them, the flames transported me to the place that can only best be described as "home." And, I suppose that is what The Well has always been for me, a second Home where family gathered.

I am a child of the sixties and a generation that embraced radical change and idealism with a strong sense of independence and an "anything goes" hedonism. I followed the mainstream cultural dogma embracing the labels of success fitting snugly into a paper house culture best described by Gordon Gecko, who in the 1987 film "Wall Street" told us "what's worth doing is worth doing for money."

About three years ago, a great wave of change washed away all that I once knew. I had alienated the love of my life and two beautiful children, had lost my faith in the Church, lost our life savings, watched our home burn down and, for the first time, came face to face with the darkest measure of emptiness. It was the beginning of learning to live authentically and openly as I began journeying into the West. I had never felt so alone and completely lost without community or any sense of Self.

The Universe provided me a number of teachers in nature based and shamanic studies, an acupuncturist, naturopath, massage therapist and other guides with a handful of authors such as David Whyte, Mary Oliver, Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung, Rilke, Rumi and Hafiz that helped me discover a new language, a hopeful vision and a deep soulful connection with the Beloved, the Land and the Universe that all along was silently awaiting my return. It was my first sense of true community and, through it, I learned I was not alone nor will I ever be lonely again.

Through much grace, forgiveness, understanding and self acceptance, our family grew together again in a beautiful way. Our home was literally and figuratively rebuilt. And, my amazing wife introduced me to Yoga in her classes at The Well where I observed an acceptance of teachers and students without pretension or a focus on the bottom line. That was a little over a year ago. Since then, I have come to understand an ever growing importance of community, acceptance and love - a belonging while living a life worth far more than money. It's what has kept us here investing in our community, local businesses and developing relationships.

Our culture seems to struggle to imagine a life beyond consumerism and soul-suppressing jobs. And our ability to become fully human does not seem supported by the "normal" day to day. But, there is a shift underway. Joanna Macy describes it as the Great Turning and that it is happening in three areas that are equally necessary:

1. "holding actions" to slow the damage to Earth and its beings;
2. analysis of structural causes and the creation of alternative institutions; and
3. a fundamental shift in world view and values.

We will need to go beyond contemporary culture to find the change we seek. And, we might just be witnessing a significant cultural shift and collective awareness that will define the beginning of the end of the industrial era. Thus, the community will become ever important for a sustainable future.

It begins with the individual. Each of us has a place in this life that truly matters and there is a yearning to become more fully human finding ease, inspiration, belonging and wisdom within. And then, it can shift to the Community. There is an interdependence of all beings and our relationship to life is cultivated through a greater connection to one another, our earth and all beings that are supported by it.

The community is the keystone of our future and can be a sustainable, cooperative, enriching resource welcoming all individuals. I believe that the community provides individuals and families with a sense of place and belonging, fellowship and support, purpose and meaning. I believe the community is not for excluding, but for including.

Now is our time to move beyond us and them, democrat and republican, christian and pagan, black and white, vegetarian or omnivore. For every line drawn to exclude, we can draw another line around and include. We are all one and are either building up or breaking down. Regardless of where you are right now, I invite you to build up. Did you recognize in this last election that both coasts of our country were blue split into two by a path of red in the middle+ It's time to come together.

Upon further reflection of The Well closing, I realize we are losing a space where we connect. But, the spirit created in that place lives in each of us and our lives have been undoubtedly touched in a meaningful way. While the Universe has other plans for that space, we remain open and encouraged by the Mystery that lies around the corner. Who knows what doors will open as the doors to The Well close. There will be a place in the right space and in the right time and, for now, we can foster the seeds that were planted in the last couple years. There are already many in the community opening their doors to one another. We are personally committed to manifesting even more of that. I'm reminded that the love that I felt from my experience in community mirrored the amount of love I gave.

Please join me in wishing Amy and Lance well upon their journey and thanking them for fostering such a beautiful space for us. The best way I know how to honor them is in keeping the Spirit and the connection alive. Until we talk again:

"This is the true joy in life, being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one. Being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as I live it is my privilege - my *privilege* to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I love. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me; it is a sort of splendid torch which I've got a hold of for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations."

-- George Bernard Shaw

Namaste-
Heart From Fire