Home is where the heart is, they say. Which implies that we feel most at home with the people and places we love. But I tend to take a more literal translation.
Home is where the heart is.
So where is your Heart?
Is it pulsating with life and love, fully present in each moment? Is it bruised black and blue from the clobber and chaos of life? Or is it staunchly armored, locked away behind steel coating, the key hidden so well, you can’t even remember where you hid it?
Where is your Heart?
Is it inside of you? Or did you give it to someone else? Do you share it with your children, your partner, your parents? Do those voluntarily bequeathed pieces of your heart exist safely or are they getting squeezed and battered, out in the Real World?
Do you ever sit with your Heart and hear what it has to say?
Does it cry and complain from neglect? Ramble on about all the complex feelings it has to deal with? Or sit with you in silence, speaking a language without words, a language known only to you?
If, indeed, your Heart is your home, then what does it look like?
Is it a sunny and sprawling estate? A haunted house with dark shadows, rooms boarded shut, and skulls in every closet? A kingdom bustling with malice and magic? A heavenly garden full of Divine light?
I have spent a lifetime searching for home, feeling like I didn’t belong anywhere - never feeling fully “there” among my family or friends, not devoted to any particular country, or attached to any single generation, not a member of this world, even, but rather, an observer alien on loan from another universe.
Recently, though, I’ve begun to see things differently. It’s not that I don’t belong to any one person or place; it’s that I belong to everyone, everywhere.
I am the aging grandmother whose kids never call her anymore. I am the struggling laborer having trouble making ends meet. I am the dehydrated and silent baby with no access to milk or water. I am Russian. I am Chinese. I am Israeli. I am Palestinian. I am the dirt upon which you walk, the sky to which you look up and pray. I am in the very air you breathe, my essence sucked into your nostrils, coursing through your expectant lungs, expelled through your quivering lips. I am these fingers typing away, but also, the keyboard and the screen. I am every thought, every idea, every universe that has ever existed. I am a million different versions of myself in a million different dimensions.
I am Everything.
And so, if I am you, and you are me, then aren’t we all One, our hearts joined, our home the same? We ARE this moment. This breath. This heartbeat. We are right here, right now.
I am Everything, but I am also Nothing, because “I” doesn’t exist when there’s only one “We”.
But if everyone doesn’t believe that, then it doesn’t feel like the Truth, does it? If others don’t prescribe to the same concept of Oneness, then this “We” gets relegated back to an “I”, and I feel just as lost, unworthy, and fractured as ever.
Homeless.
Don’t you see how the powers that be delight in sowing division much more than in building unity? The us vs them dynamic? You’re either with us or against us? Life is black or white? You can either be good or bad? I say, in reality, we don’t have only two choices in life because we ARE everything. We embody all traits, all forces, all qualities, all possibilities. All we have to do is cultivate the best within ourselves and appreciate the best in others, fostering inner harmony and collective union.
As an “I”, life feels lonely and bleak. Is THAT why all I see is homelessness on the rise? Alienation and isolation among the youth? Refugees on the run from torture and turmoil? Vociferous dissension within nations? Between nations? Fragmented identities? The world warring with the weather?
Home is where the heart is, they say. But I can’t seem to find my Heart anymore. It’s been ripped into shreds, now dissolving, disappearing, just a few fleshy pieces remaining, limited love left to share. Because love has its limits, doesn’t it?
Or does it?
Let us share this love now, you and I. In this moment. Before it passes us by.
Such a beautiful piece, once again.💛
The Oneness you describe reminds me so much of what I read, felt and resonated with so massively in the book ‘Conversations with God’ by Neale Donald Walsch. I know you already have a tremendous reading list 😂 but this is one book I recommend to everyone to read. It changed so much for me!
Thank you for continuing to share your heart, art and precious gift of weaving words together so beautifully, with the world. ‘Ppreciate you so much!💛