a Place Called HOME

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"We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring 

will be to arrive where we started 

and know the place for the first time." ~ T. S. Eliot.


This IS my childhood home. Literally, a place I called HOME for more than a decade. I am not normally attached to the mundane or nostalgic about my life yet, when my husband found this former house I grew up in, I was surprised by the emotion that surfaced within me. 

a Place Called HOME - my spiritual companioning vocation - was never about a physical, tangible place. It is about finding those characteristics we associate with how we define HOME within ourselves. It is the journey away from our selves in a fervent discovery that what we are searching for lives within us and is expressed as us whether or not we allow it... with grace and wisdom comes that acceptance. 

For most of my life, my dreams have informed the current state of my life through images of houses; burned down houses charred by the flames, new construction, unfinished projects, empty rooms and even secret rooms. These dream houses have reflected my internal journey of where I felt I was in life. Externally, I am enamored with a little bit of window peeping.  Houses lit from the inside during the evening that bustle with life and exude warmth have long captured my attention.  

Since 8th grade I can remember being called direct, described as having an edge, and being told I'd make a good lawyer. I speak my mind, I have opinions, I hold strong boundaries, and, quite frankly, I am okay if you don't agree with me.  Perhaps, even better. However, some where along my journey I tried to temper that; soften the edges in my approach, use less bullet points in an email, find an indirect way to enter a difficult conversation... and still I am perceived as having an edge, being direct, and having the ability to carry emotion well; stable. 

So, I've come full circle - back to the place where I started and now guess what? I'm going to embrace it... softened by life through grace and wisdom. Perhaps the journey is about the simple adventure of awareness and acceptance.  We can talk about growth and learning (which I suppose wisdom is) but we are the only instrument we have; like the French Horn player in the symphony who started playing in 4th grade and has perfected her craft over many years, many decades. Our instrument, who we are, only gets richer, fuller, and more beautifully expressed as life flows through us. 

It incorporates the places we accept and the places we reject; parts and pieces we have hidden away from ourselves and others. Dark shadows. Secret rooms.  Places we judge as unloving, unworthy, unacceptable. This light and dark is our wholeSpiritedness! It is ALL of who we are; ALL of us!

Spiritual Companioning is about being a witness on that journey; gentle guidance and patience as one discovers and defines the place within themselves that most feels like HOME. The internal adventure of awareness and acceptance of oneself and living authentically out of that place; showing up in the world as God's unique expression of YOU! Life coursing through you as with all beings and accepting ALL that You are and ALL that Spirit animates in this world.  

a Place Called HOME is one big HELL YES for the Radical Acceptance of ALL! 

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#purposefulpondering #joyFULLreflection #honorwhatsurfaces #reflectionmoment 

#spiritliveswithin #intotheGRAYzone #pause #breathe #engage #aPlaceCalledHOME #theRadicalAcceptanceofALL

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