Letting Go in June

When one jumps over the edge, one is bound to land somewhere.

-D. H. Lawrence

Earlier this week, I had to say goodbye to my childhood home. We packed boxes of precious books, piled our car with pillows, wrapped heirlooms and crystals, and left some things behind– including our lovely garden. It’s been difficult but liberating to let go. After we finished packing, I cut a segment of blush-tinted flowers from the garden and placed them in a small mason jar on my window sill.  Taking a little bit of ‘home’ home, as it were. In the last few years, I’ve created little corners of reflection/grounding wherever I go. When I stayed at my sister’s place for two weeks, I claimed one of her side tables by placing  a patinaed Green Tara statue and a chunk of quartz on it. When I stayed at my Dad’s place in B.C, I made space on one of his shelves for my tiger’s eye mala and some new stones I had collected.

I realize, through this process of letting go,  that being at “home” is an intentional act. It can be created anywhere, and it goes with us wherever we go. It is an altar in the heart, a memory of scent, a handful of laughter.

I had the gift of working with some incredible students at the end of May and we discussed the very notion of home- and how it is tied to identity, belonging and heritage.

One of my grade 6 students wrote about home as a place where “you can walk through the streets knowing that you are safe ’cause you have family all around-not by blood but by bond.”

And isn’t that what home should be? A safe place that nurtures community, builds relationships, deepens connections and generates a sense of love?

After my last workshop in May, I  let my feet guide me to the lake. I settled into the rhythm of the breeze and watched the sunlight dance on the surface of the water. A duck, emerald feathers shimmering, glided through the ripples.  A white-winged butterfly flitted past me. A teenaged couple placed their bicycles down and laughed into each other’s arms.

I was home.

Home is a river rock and a sprig of hyacinth.

Home is a worn nautilus shell.

Home is an acorn at your feet.

Home is an exhale, a sigh, a song.