Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Return to the land of Eureka.

Back from this journey, not done, just back. Driving up to Ojai. First time since August that I am back home, but what is home? I have found a home so many places-- and I almost feel as though placing all of my things neatly ordered around me to settle, to put down roots and start to delve into what the story told so far has been is a suffocation-- a surrender to stasis. To be in one place, not trapped, but rooted--in one way feels like a breath of air-- like an island in the middle of an ocean of time upon which I am safe to sit with myself. Another thought is that it is paralysis--the journey, how can the journey continue, how can it flow?
The story is where my home is. The people, their hearts and lives, this is where I want to be. Do I lack an identity, a story of my own? New York, South Africa, Maui. There are so many homes for me. They are not brick and mortar. My homes are these communities, these circles of friends, family, seekers, searchers, collaborators and lovers. I do not want to say good bye to any of them. I want to be a thread, a path, a voice and heart linking all of them, making each circle wider and stronger from all the circles woven together with it. If my community joins your community, joins our community, well it's not such a small world is it? The world is as big as our hearts and imaginations can wonder and love, and the size of our wondering and love just might be the shape of our belonging within community.
How do I maintain this focus, this journey, amid the calm of settled life? How do I continue to weave and reweave all of these hoops of people sitting in council, breaking bread, around the world?
With each of my communities our relationship seems to be of lovers. Two lovers meet, and from their connection a child is born--an inspiration, an idea, a vision. And both must tend to this child, this vision. I must raise these children, these ideas, into beings that exist on their own--into lives which bring joy and connection into the lives of others.
With each of our communities we do this, or we don't. But this, from my still dawning perspective, is the nature and meaning of our communities, our interrelationship--to bring joy and belonging, understanding and wonder, prosperity and discovery, into each of the communities, (our family, our town, our office, the knitting circle, the coffee shop) through which we weave our lives, to raise these children together. These children are our visions, our hopes, our inspirations, and our communities are the places, the circles of beings, where all the children of our souls are safe and free and nourished to become what we cannot imagine--beings in their own right--living stories which walk the earth through the minds of humankind.
What will be born of these roots placed? Is this the land of the most fertile soil?