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WHAT DOES YOUR HOME FEEL LIKE?
Dear Creatrix,
In the last week, we have looked at the material aspects of a home: The way that it is built, where it is located, the space that is available and what it offers. We’ve also brought to our awareness that the way we live isn’t normal or the only way we could live, but just a custom that we are used to because of our upbringing.
And then we’ve investigated how we feel about our current homes and looked at ways to make peace with our current living situation. Because we need that whether we decide to stay where we are, or whether we decide to move to a new place.
If we don’t make peace with them and don’t look at the things carefully that bother us now, we might just find out that they will bother us in any place we move to, as it’s never about the things and always about how we see them.
So, today, we will have a look at what makes our homes come alive – again because it’s something that we will need to be conscious about, no matter where we decide to live.
As just like we fuel our bodies with food, we need to fill our homes with life and energy to make them what they are: homes and not just houses.
We bring in things, transform them, before, eventually, the parts that couldn’t be absorbed, leave again.
People enter our homes, as well as other living beings, and objects. Sometimes even dead parts of beings come into our homes (and I’m not talking about ghosts or souls, those may come too, but dead animals in the form of meat, which is fine, as long as we are aware of what we’re doing and make it a conscious choice).
Some of the things we bring in leave the same way they came in, others change, leave as parts or in different shapes.
There is an alchemy going on in our homes, that is beyond our homes having boundaries and space to give us shelter and safety.
Who has come to visit you recently and left enriched from your conversation?
Did your home feel different after someone came to visit?
Which homes have you been to that transformed you?
How do you feel in different spaces?
What makes different places feel different? Is it the sound? The smells? What else?
How about the potatoes or rice you bought the other day? How did they enter and in which form have their different parts left your house again?
Or your books? Are there things you create, manufacture in your home? Gifts to wrap? Letters to mail?
What does aliveness feel like in your home?
In the last lesson we looked at the outlines, the structure and physical appearance of a home: the materials it is made from, the rooms, the utilities, and the location.
Some of us might prefer a room with a view. For others, it might be more important to live close to public transport or the water, or to not have any people around them at all or many people they know close by.
In your journaling practice, you might have noticed things repeating. Objects, facilities, things which you had or really longed for, but didn’t have as a child, that might or might not be present in your life now.
Maybe you found some things of which you know that if you had the choice, you’d never want to have them in your life ever again. Whatever came up is good. Whatever comes to our awareness and is received can’t haunt us any more.
So while in the last week, we looked at the physical, visible aspects of a home, noises, temperature and other aspects that influence the way we see our homes, today we will look at the feeling side, why we have those feelings and what effect they have on our choices.
WHAT MEMORIES CAME UP FOR YOU WHEN YOU WENT THROUGH THOSE QUESTIONS I GAVE YOU?
I’ll share one of my memories that came up looking back at the way I grew up:
When my brother and I shared a room in our witch house, we fought a lot. But we also shared a lot and had a lot of fun.
When we each had our separate rooms in the big house, the fancy house, we only had to meet when we wanted something from each other, which led to us fighting at almost every interaction.
The shared and fun parts did not happen any more.
Our former home became my Mum’s office, and our living room just a living room with no one in it all day, and so we each spent much more time apart. Once we had all the things we dreamed about in the witch house, I started to feel pretty lonely.
I’m sharing this story because it had an influence on what I have and how I live now.
For me, my fondest memories are of the most simple times.
Corn on a cob prepared over the fire because there was no stove. Potatoes fried in oil because that was all there was. But there was always love and presence in these shared experiences.
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