“Where do we come from? Where do we go? And what of politics, war, and love? And why? What is the sense of it all? Will we ever make it home?
We all have the same questions, no matter our culture, country, generation, or age.”
—Joy Harjo* in “Catching the Light”
Such times we live in. A climate disaster in the making. Wars on five out of seven continents. Autocracies on the rise around the world. Democracy under threat here in the U.S.
Asking will we ever make it home, opens the question, “What is home?” Is it something physical like a country, a state, a city, a house, even a tiny house? Or is it something invisible, something inside us that feels like home?
Given the tumult around us, it is a question worth pondering. Watching or listening to news can pull me this way and that, up and down, inside and out. And yet, as Harjo writes, “A doorway appears where a door was not possible…We find a way through even when there appears to be no light.” Perhaps a doorway to home?
When I am consciously aware of the thoughts in my mind, the sensations in my body, the feelings in my heart, along with the space around me…a doorway does appear, a way through to a space that includes the phenomena of the moment but is bigger. This awareness is like the light on the porch at night. We can find a way through to a sense of stillness, a kind of home within.
One’s internal space can get to feel crowded with so much going on in our worlds near and far. This occurs, in part, because we are habituated to paying attention to the objects in the space around us. The screen in front of my face, the closet over there, the picture on the wall, the chair next to my desk. And, yet all of these exist in space to which we can also pay attention. We are always in and surrounded by space. When I feel jam-packed with thoughts and emotions, my body constricts, adding to that sense of crampedness. So, I experiment with paying attention to the space in which I and all these objects exist.
Although seemingly invisible, space is always there and never empty of the vibrations of the electromagnetic and gravity fields in which we live. However, even though space is not empty, it is spacious. Such spaciousness invites us to expand into it, feel it, realize we are part of it. When I pay attention to the space around me, my inner space starts to mirror it, and I don’t feel so crowded inside. This allows me to become aware of three centers of knowing: body, heart, and mind. In this way, all of us, you included, can be aware of the energy with which we are approaching whatever we are doing and decide whether it is, in fact, the energy we want to be carrying and with which we are affecting others and the space around us. Do we want to feel frantic or anxious, averse or annoyed, focused and loving, or ??? We get to decide. As we approach the upcoming elections, what we decide matters. It affects us and everyone around us.
This is all easier to write about than to do. Returning to Harjo’s opening lines, it takes courage to not know for sure where we come from, where we are going. It takes intention to know where we stand in the drama and heartache of politics, war, and love. It takes a sense of spaciousness and calm to consider our questions of why, or the sense of it all, and whether we will we ever make it home.
We will make it home because we can be home inside ourselves. As Herman Hesse wrote, “Within you, there is a stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself.” This sanctuary or home enables us to remember we are all grappling with the same questions. Better that we wrestle with these questions and be with all that is happening inside and around us with a sense of spaciousness and stillness than one of crowdedness and constriction.
I welcome your comments and reflections. I will write more about the three centers of knowing next.
Note: Now that Alan Briskin and I are finished writing “Space Is Not Empty: Harnessing Relational Fields for a Just and Compassionate World,” I am thrilled to be back writing short pieces. I hope you find them, if not inspiring, at least useful! I’ll let you know when we have a publishing date for Alan’s and my book.
*Joy Harjo is an internationally renowned performer and writer of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States.