Soul Places: Tuesday's Reflection

The moment I entered the grounds I felt a shift. A layer of invisible concerns and needs lifted, and I was somehow lighter.

I didn't just feel calmer, more peaceful, although I sensed that, too. But the feeling was more essential. One layer, maybe more, of false expectations and performance left, and I remembered who I am. Not the person I've invented, but closer to the person I was created to be. 

This happens every single time I walk though the gates at the Chautauqua Institution. On my first visit there many years ago, I had the feeling I had been there before --in another era, as a different person. Rather than trying to understand or dismiss that woo-woo feeling, I relaxed into it. I recognized Chautauqua as not only a haven, a holy place for me, but somehow I added to its soulfulness, too. 





I think that is a definition of a soul place. 


I know how lucky I am to have had intimate ongoing relationships with several soul places in my lifetime. Every time I returned to our home in Ohio, Sweetwater Farm--and I mean every single time, whether I had been gone for a few days or only long enough to grocery shop--I felt a connection to something beyond myself. A touch of the Divine. I feel that way about our current home, too, although I confess I didn't feel it the first or even second time I walked through the front door. I decided, however, to open my soul to this specific space, offering it my whole heart, remembering  my past encounters with the sacred, the holy, the divine. Now, this is one of my soul places, too. Every single day. 

I've lived in other beautiful homes and visited many memorable places, and I don't have an explanation why they don't all deserve a plaque designating them each as an official SOUL PLACE. I don't know why a place feels that way immediately and others seem to gather soulfulness over time, but I know that has been my experience. 

With the distinction of being a soul place comes responsibility. One must be a steward of one's soul place. That includes tending it well with ongoing openness and awareness and gratitude. One needs to share it, to grow within it, to expand its boundaries into the world. A soul place is not just a place where one can feel safe and supported, but it is also a place where one reaches into one's depths and draws forth one's gifts and breathes them into the world. 

This is no small task.

An Invitation
Do you have a soul place? I would love to know.