Tag: home

Refuge and Crafting Space

by Raquel Rios, posted in Uncategorized

I’m staying at another house. Moving from place to place seems to mark my current reality. In this wandering, my awareness of space increases and also my perception of home and refuge. Displacement elicits all kinds of emotion and there is insight into adapting and tolerating ambiguity. When you’re faced with a gap in life or just exploring, refuge becomes important. I am forever grateful for love that manifests into home space.

As I process this semi-nomadic experience, I keep one eye looking forward. I’m in the process of identifying my next home and in spite of longing for respite and sanctuary, I know that any house is temporary. It is like a body for a soul residing. Still… it’s nice to have a place to stay for a while to get the most out of life.

A space we inhabit reflects who we are, what we value and our purpose at the moment. Although we can’t reduce a person to his surroundings or physical characteristics, there is a significant relationship between our inner state of being and how that manifests on the outside. You can see a person’s health and well-being on his face and body just like you can see the state of mind and personality from the care and design of their dwelling.

(Perhaps all gross matter, like the spaces we inhabit, are artistic expressions of the soul)

On another note, by virtue of borrowing other people’s spaces, I’ve taken to receiving the gifts of my surroundings. Such as a bottle of wine or the books that lie around. Each gift, I crack open like a fortune cookie.

Last night I stumbled across a book in my friend’s library by Swami Sivananda. He writes:

“You create your destiny, your character, your future through your thoughts and deeds. There is no end of your experiences here and hereafter. You will continue to live and come back and be born again on this earth. Try to attain perfection and reach that state where there is no more birth, no more death, and no more disease, sorrow, tribulation or suffering… Through knowledge of the imperishable obtain perfect peace, eternal bliss, everlasting joy and immortality.”

This quote is a timely gift indeed!

Life is a creation of Self through thought and deeds. Freedom is knowing that there is no end to experience, that we keep coming back to perfect our journey. Perhaps we are all moving together like one big band of vibrating light energy, from suffering to happiness, from sorrow and disease to everlasting joy and immortality.

Perhaps in my one lonely search for home, I am being reunited with a reflection of my soul as much as it is a refuge for my body.

Perhaps in the crafting and the sculpting of it there is a unique gift, an experience to inhabit and share in the precious moments of time.

Home

by Raquel Rios, posted in Uncategorized

Home is where the heart is, an old but fitting adage. And yet, dare one ask: where is thou heart? Is thou heart inside you, like a womb or does it reside gently in the soul of another? Where is thou heart, really, when so many of us are somnambulant or worst yet, living in captivity? Shall we agree that we are at our best when we feel at home? This inside out feeling, the feeling of aloneness or oneness with space for another, a welcome guest, a lover or family. Home is a pronounced exhale, the silence of the moon while you weep, the pause between words.

There may come a time when we find ourselves homeless. A migrant, lost, a choice or caught, tossed in that dubious state of in-between. We are forced into motion, we move from one nest to another, we are fluttering outside our cocoon. Some of us take it on with a warrior stance, while others see it as a Columbus journey. Many move kicking and screaming. Regardless of the circumstance, whether you’ve chosen change or not– you find yourself charged with the slippery task of transporting yourself into a different location. The truth is, we know instinctively what is right and what we need because the heart is always precise and telling, however inconvenient it may seem, so you move forward blindly!

And we buckle and bend. And if we are impatient enough we may even distort ourselves with the painful awareness of aloneness, a caricature of such great proportion! Because we’ve forgotten and instead, we settle for a living arrangement. You must never allow yourself to stay in this inexhaustible state because you will certainly turn up empty. Simply put: home can never be experienced as a mere necessity. Rather, it must become a spiritual task, a full-blown coming into being, getting acquainted with your identity.

Where do I belong? one does ask.  And this question cannot be about yesterday or tomorrow, but rather what the present moment requires.

Where do I belong, dear God? Great heavenly God embedded in the true nature of me!

Where will I be love and respond with love? Where will my life be most loving? I so much want to cherish the earth and my soul, I want to bless my whole being. I want to embrace others with kindness and well-being.

I imagine that the question is much less about with whom or for what but rather knowing your heart, knowing that when in place your heart will open up overflowing, budding in the morning and resting in evening.