The concept of Home is in my deep-heart's core. Maybe because my birth tarot cards are the Fool and the Emperor, I have always been pulled between the impulse toward restlessness and the impulse to sink roots. The Fool has usually won the struggle! But when I was searching for my home here in Portland, the Builder (Emperor) card from the Gaian Tarot kept coming up, insisting that the Fool lay down her wanderer’s pack and stay put for a while. It was a wondrous affirmation that I’d found the right place when I saw this old sign on the shed in the back garden:
The Builder had spoken! And over the last eight months I’ve been slowly settling into what I hope will be my home for a long time. And yet... the discussion between the Emperor and the Fool continues.
A few years ago, musing over a psychic reading by Mara Freeman, I came to see that there are two factors that contribute to making a dwelling feel like Home. The first, somewhat surprisingly, is to leave it! Going “there and back again” makes home feel so precious, the cottage of sweet repose, the comfort of beloved things, one’s own familiar bed. Even coming home at the end of a workday offers this opportunity to feel grateful for the blessing of shelter. Since I work at home and haven’t been doing any traveling, I have to remind myself to make this separation happen on a regular basis, so that my home remains a sanctuary, not a prison!
(Bag End, by Alan Lee)
The second thing that I realized makes a home is having people visit you there. Since coming to this house I have been pondering the idea of hospitality. It is a sacred premise in Celtic spirituality — the guest made welcome, the threshold blessed and thrice blessed. I honor this ... in theory. In practice, I often fall short of the ideal, to say the least. It’s not that I don’t enjoy company. I do! But I have fallen into bad habits when it comes to making my home guest-ready. I tend my altars and make the Goddess welcome, and I need to tend my parlor as well, making it a sacred welcoming space for friends both old and new. Why has this taken so many months? Why am I still not fully unpacked, after yearning for a nest for so long? Because I lugged along things that I should have left behind, literally and metaphorically. Getting rid of external clutter brings up all kinds of internal clutter that also must be dealt with. "Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful," William Morris said. That goes for much else in life as well. Is it useful? Is it beautiful? Does it make a welcome homecoming for my soul?
This house, over its 107 years, has surely welcomed many souls. Many feet have worn the old floorboards, many hands have traced along the smooth wood banister. I want to add my own to that company of memories, voices lingering on the air long after the conversation ends.
I bless the corners of this house
and all the lintel blessed,
And bless the hearth and bless the board
and bless each place of rest,
And bless each door that opens wide
to strangers as to kin,
And bless each crystal window pane
that lets the starlight in,
And bless the rooftree overhead
and every sturdy wall.
The peace of Brigid on this home,
with peace and love for all.
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