Homegoing Souvenirs
My teacher Angeles Arrien said that every visit to our home place offers a chance to do soul retrieval. We can gather anything we left behind that needs to be incorporated into the person we’ve become. And we can also let go of anything that needs to rest in the past. Every time we go home again, we hope to show up more true and more current so that we do not fall back into old unhelpful patterns.
My husband and I went back East for a visit to his family and the place that shaped him, close to my home place. My young artist healer wanted me to remember my connection to the lushness of Spring through the plants: the lilac, cherry and weeping cherry, tulip, crab apple, dogwood, oak, maple, sycamore, pine, chestnut, linden, pussy willow.
As a child I would be up in the red maple, or underneath the forsythia’s yellow blooms doing the necessary work of daydreaming. I’d see how light a touch on the swollen green pods on impatiens plants would make them explode, scattering their tiny seeds. I’d wonder at the milkweed fluff and dandelion puff dancing with the wind. I’d wait for something to happen in the chrysalis of the caterpillar we caught and was thrilled when we released a blue swallowtail butterfly. I’d shiver with the creepy feeling of seeing the wriggling mass of tent caterpillars encased in their spun silk homes. Even though I was not a wild nature kid, I was deeply nourished by the natural world all around me even in the semi-tame suburbs.
My husband noticed especially the cardinal, singing its song that we don’t hear on the West Coast. We both got refreshed by the storytelling and laughing that comes through his Irish bloodlines. And I am reassured by the goodness that carries through the generations and has helped both our families weather the inevitable troubles. We came back with a greater appreciation for where we came from and where we are now, who we’ve come from and who we are becoming.
A simple labyrinth walk: going in and letting go, emerging and bringing wisdom
JOURNALING
Next time you go back home or visit old friends or family, be curious about what you notice from the p.o.v. of who you are now.
What’s one thing you longed for but didn’t have when you were growing up or the last time you’d seen the old friend? What have you created or magnetized as a grown up since then to address that longing? How have you filled that void?
What’s one thing you received as a blessing when you were growing up or when you were with the old friend originally? Did you carry that forward with you and amplify it? Or did you lose it when you left home or lost touch with the friend? If the latter, how have you recreated, reclaimed, or reinvented that blessing to bring it back into your life?
Notice where you are vulnerable to falling into old patterns and dynamics. Notice where you stay current and show up as you are now. By just showing up more authentically, you shift old patterns and allows others to do so too.
Let me know what you discover.
