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.
Thanks to the generosity of a dear friend, I spent a couple days recently in one of my soul places, the Chautauqua Institution in New York. When we lived in Cleveland, I often drove the mere two hours to spend the day there, and some summers I luxuriated in a full week of going to lectures and sitting on the porch outside my tiny room, reading and writing. I walked the quiet streets lined with Victorian homes --each one with a welcoming front porch. I even taught a journal writing class there one summer.
I knew the first time I walked through the gate, I belonged there. I knew I would meet myself there. Yes, there were lots of people like me there--educated, white, privileged, but that's not exactly what I mean. I knew this would be a place where I would get closer to the person I am created to be. In this setting I would ease into uncovering the hidden parts of myself. I would challenge myself. I would ask questions and not take the first response as the only response. I would listen to others, but not more than I listened to my own inner voice. I would imagine my better self and discover steps to own her, be her.
That's what soul places do. That's what soul places are.
But, first, you need to cross the threshold, the border. You need to stretch across boundaries, even the ones whose only purpose seems to be to keep you out.
Crossing the threshold at Chautauqua was easy for me. No one said I couldn't do it. No one told me I wasn't welcome or even illegal. No one separated me from what was most precious to me.
No one told me I was not worthy.
There have been times when crossing the border wasn't quite as easy. When I was a child and my family moved, I often felt as if I had landed in a foreign country and didn't know the language or the customs or culture, and I wondered if I would ever feel at ease there and if anyone would extend a hand to me. I sometimes felt that way when I moved as an adult, as well.
Crossing the border is not easy, but sometimes the soul requires it as much as the body and the mind does.
Perhaps what we each need right now is to remember times in our own lives when we have crossed a border, how that felt, and what it meant to us.
An Invitation
What kinds of borders have you crossed? What did you learn about yourself? I would love to know.
NOTE: I invite you to read my recent Monk in the World guest post on Christine Valters Paintner's Abbey of the Arts site here.
Glad is not a word we use very often. We are more inclined to use the word "happy," a perfectly good word and one I use frequently. The word "glad," however, seems slightly old-fashioned or perhaps it is not as exuberant a word as "happy." Does it feel more restrained, bringing less attention to one's good fortune? "I'm glad" vs "I'm happy." It does seem different doesn't it?
The word "glad," however, reminds me of gladiolas, and I happen to love gladiolas. Some people associate glads with funeral flowers, especially country church funerals. Others think they are too showy, too big for a reasonable bouquet in the house. The stalks are thick and you need a really large vase to display them properly. So what? I love the range of colors ready to match any decor or mood -- cloud white, "I'm not shy" peaches and purples, and yellows the color of a soft rose or a leaf just beginning to become gold. Glads aren't afraid of their own abundance and enthusiasm. They make me glad.
When we lived at Sweetwater Farm, I drove into the country to an Amish farm stand and bought a bouquet of glads every week in the summertime. The young man who ran the stand knew what I liked and always had a healthy bunch waiting for me. They proclaimed summer days on our eating area's long harvest table. In Madison I brought home a bouquet from the farmers market each Saturday morning to add a colorful touch to our front porch, reminding me of the Chautauqua Institution in upstate New York, one of my soul places, where it seemed glads on the front porches were almost a requirement.
Now in our St Paul home, which we lovingly call "the little house," there is still room for glads. The scale may be off, but the same large vase we have used for years sits on top of a round table in our entry way, and glads or when glads aren't available, other fresh flowers, always fill the space, lifting our hearts, welcoming us, along with friends and family, home. There is gladness in this house.
An Invitation
What makes you glad? What reminds you of the gladness in your life? And how can you add more gladness to each of your days? I would love to know.
The moment I entered the grounds I felt a shift. A layer of invisible concerns and needs lifted, and I was somehow lighter.
