Home and Belonging
This is this first of what is intended to be a regular occurrence of community divinations. Aimed at addressing the life and times of the collective—specifically those most likely to encounter this material—it is my prayer that this offering meets you well at whatever time it comes into your life.
The inquiry of this divination was based around an emerging pattern that I have been tracking over the past couple seasons. Time and again, in both the words of my clientele, and in their divination spreads, there have been fundamental questions and crises arising around home. Losing housing, feeling the need to move but feeling uncertain of where to live, and any other configuration around this theme. I have certainly been experiencing textures of this in my own life as well.
So, to the insight and wisdom of the many worlds we turn…
How can we find true Home and Belonging in these times?
The Ancestors are saying:
Home is truly where the heart is.
We must return home to ourselves.
We have become dislocated through the aegis of modern technology. Only through availing ourselves to the wisdom that comes through the practices of Earth and Ancestor reverence can we begin to become part of the whole that is fundamentally available, but inaccessible through the dis-configured connection hosted by this modern world.
Turn your attention to those most ancient, wise, loving, and kind ancestors of your blood lineage. Light a candle and bring a small feast to these most venerable ones, and ask them for their blessings, their aid, and their guidance in reestablishing our highest and most rooted selves into the intrinsically eternal life-giving spiral of creation. Abiding in the center, we remember the most ancient marriage that our souls have to the life-breathing principal of the Universe.
When we come home to the most ancient of our kin, we awaken to the wisdom and the medicine that is in us and is us. Not as individuals—though this is also true—but as the emergently cresting, ancestrally endowed wave-form function of Creation herself. Remember, and you are not forgotten.
In a day-to-day way, notice how your gifts come alive in the communities in which you dwell,
And remember.
Are you creating? Follow that instinct to make beauty with your hands, with your heart, with your lips, and your mind,
And remember.
Choose directions that make you an operative of Peace — follow the paths of ease. Which is not to be confused with laziness or complacency. Allow yourself to be borne down the river of your desires, and be carried to the Ocean of your Devotion. Hear the song of your devotion and desire,
And remember.
We only trick ourselves when we pretend to “know better.” This is the time to release all tales that need untold by telling them to someone Old. Then listen,
And remember.
Bring your sickness as a gift to the most ancient and loving tree you can find who is willing to receive you. Wrap your gift in delicious words of grief and praise. Leave it humbly at the feet of that Great Elder, and in doing so,
Remember.
We are not as lost as we think we are. Despite the depth of pain and uncertainty available in these times, the wild spirit of those that came long before us is very much alive. In the place where their ancient love, your soul, and the Earth coincide, this is where the seeds of belonging reside.
Dwell and tend well to this place inside, and you will Arrive.
Arrive.
Arrive.
Additional Thoughts
Part of what came through when the ancestors said, “We have become dislocated through the aegis of modern technology,” is that, while the dislocation of humanity is not a new legacy of modernity, the particular face of modernity that is our screens, our computers, and our cell phones is accelerating and amplifying these dislocating effects drastically. This is not a new idea, but if you are currently experiencing acute issues or anxiety around place, home, or belonging, please consider drastically reducing your screen time as much as possible, especially as it relates to social media. The irony of this being conveyed to you through a digital medium is not lost on me, but such is the riddle of these times we are in…
In the Dagara cosmology, as it was taught to me by Elder Malidoma Somé, the element Earth—which in this context refers specifically to soil, sand, dirt, etc.—is the element which holds the frequential wisdom, medicine, and archetypal essence of Home, Nurturing, and Belonging*. We can respectfully and relationally approach the earth—the soil—and in doing so call the influence of its powers into our lives for the health and betterment of ourselves and our communities. One way is to build an Earth shrine, something as simple as a small but venerated mound of soil that we erect. Here we can make offerings and prayers to the powers of Earth. Offerings may look like milk and honey, or other materials that you—either intuitively, or through guidance of living wisdom carriers of the indigenous peoples of the land on which you live—believe will be accepted and appreciated. However, with any offering, consider the ecological and relational impact that the taking and giving of that offering may have. This is a large subject that I hope to speak to in a future post, but in the meantime, consider gifts of voice and breath, and those made entirely by hand of materials you personally acquired in a good way—with the permissions of the ecologies they are a part of—as some of the most potentially potent and whole-some offerings.**
Finally, I was inspired to look into the etymology of the word, “arrive,” as it came through in such a pronounced way at the end. I found it to be a beautiful deepening of the message and meaning of this divination:
arrive (v.)
c. 1200, "reach land, reach the end of a journey by sea," from Anglo-French ariver, Old French ariver "to come to land" (11c.), from Vulgar Latin arripare "to touch the shore," from Latin ad ripam "to the shore," from ad "to" + ripa "shore". The original notion is of coming ashore after a long voyage.
*More complete understandings of this in Elder Malidoma’s book, The Healing Wisdom of Africa
**More complete understandings of this in Martín Prechtel’s book, The Unlikely Peace at Cuchumaquic
