Homecoming

To Come Home To Yourself

May all that is unforgiven in you, Be released.

May your fears yield Their deepest tranquilities.

May all that is unlived in you, Blossom into a future, Graced with love.

John O’Donohue, Irish poet and philosopher

I ponder what does it mean when I hear, “Come home to yourself.” I sense this lands in a unique way for each of us. For me, I’m still learning how this feels to embody in its fullness. Places outside myself that feel safe, remind me of this home that I yearn for. When I find myself within them, an almost mystical elixir washes over me and my senses are heightened. The red rock desert is home, camping under the stars deep in the wooded forest with the Grey’s river flowing by is home, feeling the cobblestones beneath my feet in Italy is home. I knew when I landed on Maui, with its explosion of colors, a warmth that enveloped me, the sounds and smells of the ocean that once again I had discovered another place to call home.

The interior landscapes are more intricate, complicated and nuanced. I’ve witnessed feeling as if I’m an octopus, actively grabbing the parts of myself that I have disassociated from. Perhaps because of a narrative inherited from past generations, the culture, or current life events that brought discomfort and a desire to flee, rather than moving towards the internal inferno.

Coming home to myself is freeing when I can engage it with curiosity and a sense of discovery, rather than a tenseness or fear of what I might uncover. I am curious about what I’m discovering and it’s involving listening and sitting with my eight and sixteen year old selves. My eight year old self and I have a rhythm sorted out that we have been working on for quite some time now. My sixteen year old has been hiding out a bit. She showed me an image of a carry on bag stowed away under my seat. This teen longs to be a free spirit and not have to put on her work boots because a crisis is upon her. This was the age I had just turned when my dad left my mom and both my older brother and sister were in college. It was just my mom and me trying to salvage the pieces of an abruptly shattered life. I had a huge responsibility thrust upon me to not push the envelope with my already very fragile and heartbroken mom which might not have been my norm as a teen with desires and surges to test her wings.

My homecoming has also included a huge missing piece within my interior and exterior world, my son. There is a Douglas size hole within my heart and the love that dwells there I must find tangible expressions for. It does not help nor am I healing when I to try to run away from home, even if it looks vastly different than I ever imagined it would. I desire to keep arriving on my doorstep, dusting and shaking off my welcome mat and courageously entering into those aspects of myself that are each a part of who I was, am and might even become.

What if our homecoming, meant just that, coming home to ourselves and sinking into the easy chairs of our hearts? Deciding to stay awhile, even when discomfort greets us, rather than desiring to run because of the judgments we might hold around what is arising. I wonder if our insides might begin to experience some pockets full of peace if we are the ones who fling the door open and welcome ourselves home? This is a doorway that is calling to me, beckoning me to cross the threshold and encouraging me to stay awhile.

I am discovering that this cannot be done on the run, it happens when I become quiet, listen and encourage the door to stay open, even if just ajar, for as long as I’m able. It’s a practice, once again, not a goal nor an endpoint, rather a beginning, which actually is the homecoming I’ve been seeking all along.