The Power of Invoking Home Wherever you Are
The concept of home has been on my mind in this past year for a variety of reasons. Mostly it has arisen because of moving into a new house a year ago after living at my previous place for five years and considering how to solicit a feeling of home in this new dwelling. I have also been traveling more to the East Coast more this past year and have been surprised to encounter a strong sentiment of home in the places I’ve visited, which has spiked my curiosity around how the nature of home takes hold for people. Questions that surfaced for me in this exploration have included:
what conditions evoke home
the difference between house and home
what actions that can be taken to spur a feeling or home
why some places more than others feel like home
how home can be inspired upon a place and/or
the influence one’s being state can have around eliciting home in any environment.
I have come to understand in greater detail the multi-dimensionality in the concept of home and I believe there is great freedom in discovering the myriad of ways we evoke a sense of home so that we can create a relaxed and fulfilled state wherever we are. I also think it invites deeper reflection for all of us around the notion that we are spiritual beings and how to connect and be a part of spirit in a greater way to evoke feelings of peace and comfort. Here are some of my realizations this past year that I’d like to share with you all:
Close relationships can connote home
We are social creatures and certainly close relationships summon a sense of home for most of us. I had the experience this past year of visiting with a friend from college whom I hadn’t seen in 7 years and I believe a part of what made me feel so at home in this context was having such a close connection with her. I think it’s important to recognize that these are not just any relationships, but the kind of relationships that invite the feeling of home are deeper relationships where the people care deeply for one another. As the expression states, "home is where the heart is" and any time we can connect with others this offers a means for illuminating home. In addition to the close people we have in our lives, I feel it’s also important to note that we can develop closeness to the essence of the place we reside in most often, as well as the vegetation and animals that are in these surroundings and that when we travel or are away from what we consider “home”, if we can access physical elements that bring about a feeling of home, that we can feel better oriented and at peace.
Spaces evoke home and we can create home wherever we go
It’s particularly fascinating to compare the root words of house and home to provide greater context for this topic. The word home comes from the Ancient Greek word nostos which translates as both "delicious" and "handsome" and essentially implies that what is pleasing provides a sense of home. In contrast, quite interesting to consider that the root of the word house means “to hide”. I actually find this to be true on an energetic basis where people can energetically ground themselves through their physical houses and desire to spend more time at their house because their sense of security within themselves is tied to their home. This effectively plays out in that they can hide from being their true powerful selves in the world by not fully coming into themselves when they are out and about in society away from their “house” or “hiding place”. Overall I feel people tend too often to place the most amount of emphasis upon the actual physical building where “home” is located as what determines their relationship to the concept of home. They will use interior design and put up pictures and things like aromatherapy to create what feels like one’s own version of a nest. It’s certainly true that the physical buildings we live in are alive beings themselves colored by the people who live in them. I also invite people to think more mindfully and freely about how to bring forward a sense of home and a movement away from what is comfortable and towards becoming aligned with their true nature in order to more dynamically conjure or birth home wherever they are.
Pursue your passions and a sense of home will shine
I recognize now in a clearer way that the home I cultivate within my internal self brings about a much stronger pulse of home than any external factors. Prompting and inviting myself to more fully be myself through the pursuit of my passions and my own self-expression of myself in the world gives greater rise to that sense of home within myself and I notice this same phenomenon happening in other people. It’s life giving and can feel like one is stepping more fully into themselves by doing and being the things they feel they are expressions of themselves. I feel like this gives prana – life force throughout one’s entire being. For instance, I play soccer regularly and I have had the chance to play it in other places when I travel and I find that the act of playing it makes me feel like myself and can help bring forward a sense of home even if I’m playing it in different places and with different people. I also feel that part of the reason people experience depression is because they have mental awareness of who they want to be and do in the world, but in their real life experience they are blocked or not following through to be the person they know or aspire themselves to be. This literal disconnect at the micro level within oneself - which I describe more fully below - engenders feelings of sadness, stuckness, and frustration. I’d encourage all of us as much as possible, to challenge ourselves to grow and try out the things we feel can make us happy and alive so that we can generate home wherever we are. Ultimately we are all striving to be ourselves as fully as possible wherever we are and one of the greatest leverage points to do so is cultivating a sense of ourselves to bring confidence, self-assuredness and peace wherever we are in the world.
Recognize yourself as part of a system to engender home
It’s also important going forward as much as possible that we evoke feeling a part of a whole rather than separation. What I mean by this is that instead of seeing yourself as separate in any other place besides where you largely reside, to consider yourself as a part of that place or nested system you are contributing to in some fashion. Recognizing that wherever you go, whatever you are doing – you are in a reciprocal relationship with that system and that you are where you need to be in that moment in time. The more you can feel a sense of connection and expression of yourself in that place that is serving the greater whole, the more will you can generate within yourself to shine your light and be the fuller expression of yourself in that place. To that end, you will feel energized and have a greater sense of flow. Really we all are so much more connected and similar than I think we can imagine, even when we bring forward our uniqueness, and the more we can integrate ourselves and feel nested within centers across our life in different ways, the more we will feel alive, vibrant and bring about greater health and vitality to ourselves, all beings within that system, the place itself and to the greater whole.
Simple actions invite a feeling of home
One of the simple lessons as well involves learning that washing dishes makes me feel at home. This largely stems from growing up my family where we would always eat dinner together and in addition to helping prepare the meals, it was standard practice for me to help wash dishes. I had not thought too much about washing dishes other than I like my kitchen to be clean. However observing myself closer I came to realize that the act of washing dishes brings forward a feeling of home for myself. I noticed this when I travelled and washed dishes at a friends place and that by my body going through these motions, it literally prompted a sense of relaxation and comfort that I find my center of gravity and inspire a feeling of home. I'd imagine for others, simple functional actions can build the energetic momentum of home wherever someone is in the world.
There’s other factors to consider in this conversation, including certain places in particular conjuring home for people. I think this is largely driven by past lives where we immediately feel comfortable and drawn to a place for sometimes unexplainable reasons. Our bodies too carry certain pre-disposed senses of comfort and peace. For example, I’ve discovered how important it is to move my body – that this makes me feel aligned with myself and comfortable. All in all, there are many ways the nature of home can be called into being for someone and I feel if we can become more mindful of what conditions, our state of being, what we are doing – that effectively brings forward this concept for us – that we can be happier and more at peace wherever we are in the world.
I’d be curious to hear from others, what thoughts come up for you from this concept of home and if there’s anything missing, additional or important to note for this conversation. Thanks all for reading!