House as Mirror of Self

I recently discovered a book that looks at our human connection with our homes in an intimate way unlike any other I've ever read.  It is written by a UC Berkeley Professor that I have studied with in the past as a Landscape Architecture student.  The book, House as Mirror of the Self: Exploring the Deeper Meaning of Home, by Claire Cooper Marcus, looks at our home not as a financial investment, a trendy place to decorate in the latest fashion, or even a mere shelter.  Instead, it shows how our psychological development is punctuated not only by our relationships with the people in our lives, but also by the close ties we form with our physical environment, our homes in particular.  As Carl Jung poetically illustrates in his autobiography Memories, Dreams, Reflections, we are continually manifesting our unconscious, and our home, if at harmony, reflects this manifestation of our deepest selves.

I have had two great loves of home in my life-- my childhood home, a 1500 acre ranch in the high California desert; and the home where my children were born, where I built the garden of my soul, where I sanded and stained hardwood floors, and where I awoke each morning to birdsong and a lush green garden surrounding my bedroom.  Both were lost to me in very emotional circumstances.  I know, however, that they will always be within me, and my energy remains with these two very special places.

Because I have always felt this profound connection with place, I have spent my schooling and professional years exploring this connection in one form or another.  Psychology and Philosophy brought my gaze inward, as I yearned to explore this amazing world within.  Later, Environmental Studies and Landscape Architecture drew my gaze out and emphasized the connection between myself and place.  I am now bringing this together through Sensuist Intimacy Coaching.  In the Home of the Soul and Garden of the Soul, I have implemented some of the exercises suggested by Marcus, some of which I completed when I was a Landscape Architecture student.

I truly believe that with an open heart this process leads to profound personal insights.  It can be a very emotional journey, as it certainly is for me.  Most importantly, it will help us to create a home that is genuine to our truest of selves, that is nurturing, that is, indeed, sacred and carved out for us to be ourselves.

As we rush through our days, surrounded by the concrete jungle of our cities, perhaps working in windowless environments, and often remaining untouched, we numb.  We forget who we are, who the small child from years ago aspired to be.  We are neglecting this child, and we must bring this child home.

Part of the process of the intimacy coaching is the authoring of a brief environmental autobiography.  We write about a childhood place that we found most formulative.  This process brings our mind back to a time when place strongly formed us as we were beginning to see ourselves as unique entities.

Marcus writes:

Our senses have a way of reconnecting us, without warning, to memories of times and places long ago, and in particular to memories of childhood...Childhood is that time when we begin to be conscious of self, when we start to see ourselves as unique entities.  It is not surprising that many of us regard that time as an almost sacred period in our lives.  Since it is difficult for the mind to grasp a time period in abstract, we tend to connect with it through memories of the places we inhabited.

This is our foundation; is our foundation built strong, or is it crumbling?  This we must understand.  Years ago, while studying Landscape Architecture, I  wrote my own environmental autobiography.  This is what I wrote:

My most formulative childhood environment was our family's ranch.  I spent my childhood on the ranch, and, for me, it was magical.  We had a long, winding driveway which lead into the main entry court, encircled by our guest house, barn, shops, and corrals.  Beyond this, my grandparents' house and my parents' house sat connected by a bridge over a quiet stream.  Further yet, were acres of alfalfa fields.

This environment formed me as I was so involved in it.  I awoke early in the morning to feed the cows and cut the fields with my grandpa.  Throughout the day, my brother and I would explore the river near the perimeter of the ranch or hike out in the fields.  Our play was imaginative, always exploratory, always adventurous.  In the summer, when the haystacks mounted, we would make forts within the stacks, and run, and jump, and hide in crevices. 

My grandpa always had a large garden.  When my brother and I were young, my grandpa would carry us out into the garden.  As he patiently and caringly watered the plants, he would lift us up to pick cherries or a pear.  He would then pull out his pocket knife, and carve right into the pear, and hand us little bite-size pieces.  He would also peel us fresh corn, little fuzzy heads pulled right from the tall and mysterious rows of stalks.  Surely they were sweeter than any candy.

The strongest presence in my childhood home was my grandpa.  For me, he was the ranch.  It cradled me in its arms, as did he.  It provided me shelter and warmth, as my grandpa did.  It taught me and inspired me.  It was a place that I felt distinctly "home."  Because of the connection between my grandpa and the ranch, the places which made the strongest impressions upon me are those where I spent the most time with him-- the garden, his home, the fields surrounding the lake in front of his home, the swimming hole.

It is clear to me that this place remains with me in all of my designs, and in most of what I do.  Because this place has so strongly influenced me, I do now realize that as magical as this place was and still is to me, it might not be to others.  Nonetheless, I feel that I can still use its influence on me to help others because through this place, I have known a place of magic; and knowing that feeling of magic, I can strive to create that for others.

I recently brought my two young children on a journey back to the ranch.  Because our family had to sell the ranch, it had been decades since I had been there.  I had heard that it had changed quite a bit.  I didn't know the current owner.  I really didn't know what to expect...

Tentatively, we drove up the long, winding driveway.  I was so happy to be on this lovely adventure with my children who've known this ranch as an almost mythical environment.  When we reached the entry court, I almost expected our dogs to come out barking to greet us.  Where was my grandpa?  Who would come out to tell us to go away?  We parked and saw no one.  We got out of the car on this hot summer day, and my children began to look for arrowheads, as my brother and I did so many years ago.  Still we saw no one.

I began to feel more comfortable, and we walked further.  The kids asked to go to the river.  As we approached, a deer bounded away, surprised to see two-leggeds.  Yet we saw no one.  And then I knew that this was an opportunity that I could not let pass by for my children and I.  We climbed down the heavily vegetated bank to the shallow river, and we walked along looking for water skippers and crawdads.  We cooled ourselves on this hot day of temperatures exceeding 100 deg F.

I then gave up looking for others, and decided to make believe, just for a few hours, just for our little adventure.  We took off our burdensome clothes and dove right in.  We played with each other in this beautiful sacred place, and we delighted our senses, imprinting beautiful memories of connectedness on our open minds.  We fed ourselves juicy fruit, sandwiches, snacks; everything tasted so good.  We lingered.  We couldn't bare to say goodbye, all of us three.  These hours spent were such full hours of connection.

As the sun began to set, I was awakened back to reality, and so we dressed, and slowly made our way back to the car.  No one found our presence on this special day for which I am deeply grateful-- a day of deep connection with my children and this beautiful, sacred place which nurtured me and contributed to my ability to nurture my children.

Friendship is bigger than we know

I recently watched the film "The Whale," and I was mesmerized.  This film is quietly, profoundly beautiful.  To me, it is about intimacy, it is about connection, and we see through the teachings of a youngster how much we have given up when we decided to lock ourselves up in geometric structures feeding on manufactured foods and television screens, afraid, indeed, afraid to touch or be touched and lost from our natural path.

From the official film website http://www.thewhalemovie.com/story.php: 

"THE WHALE tells the true story of a young, wild killer whale - an orca - nicknamed Luna, who lost contact with his family on the coast of British Columbia and turned up alone in a narrow stretch of sea between mountains, a place called Nootka Sound.

Orcas are social. They live with their families all their lives. An orca who gets separated usually just fades away and dies.  Luna was alone, but he didn’t fade away. There weren’t any familiar orcas in Nootka Sound, but there were people, in boats and on the shore. So he started trying to make contact. And people welcomed him. Most of them.

This contact did not turn out to be simple. It was as if we humans weren’t ready for him.  Inspired by myths, we look into the sky, not the depths, for others who might think and dream like us. We train radio telescopes on the stars, and listen for code in the static of space. But maybe we’re looking in the wrong place. So far, space just crackles, but the sea whistles back. And, in Nootka Sound, it sent us an open-hearted child.

This story is about what happened then."

The mythologist Joseph Campbell tells us about the progression of the human gaze.  There was a time when we were gatherers, living off the land, and finding what we needed to survive solely in the plants of the land.  The plants, those life-giving beings, were holy to us; and worship and ritual was offered to their honor.  Later, hunters turned their gaze to the animals.  Prior and consequent to going on the hunt, hunters would engage in ceremony, and once an animal was sacrificed, it was honored and thanked for the gift of its life, to sustain the life of the hunters and their families.  As such, we saw our place within nature and animals were worshiped as holy.  At some point our gaze turned to the stars and the heavens.  Religions that looked upward certainly looked down on the plants and the animals, and humans placed themselves apart from and above the Earth, the plants and the animals.  And it is here that we find ourselves today, separated from our natural place and thinking that because we are better, we have permission (manifest destiny) to exploit the others.

The film makers ponder:

"For many years we have been curious about what it will be like when an extraterrestrial appears among us. Will things be chaotic? Will they be exciting? Will they be dangerous? Will there be controversy? How will we recognize this stranger? What will we share? Will this be joyful? Will it be sad? Will it be the best thing that ever happened?

Maybe it will be all those things. Maybe it will be just like what happened when a little lonely whale tried to make friends with us lonely humans in a place called Nootka Sound.  THE WHALE celebrates the life of a smart, friendly, determined, transcendent being from the other world of the sea who appeared among us like a promise out of the blue: that the greatest secrets in life are still to be discovered."

And so it was, this youngster brought us a message that I believe we ignore at our peril.  We need each other.  It is only with deep, meaningful connection that we can survive and thrive.  We are all connected whether we acknowledge this fact or not.  We can push ourselves through traffic into sterile buildings through stressful days back into the car only to collapse after just barely keeping up.  Or we can decide to say no.  We can choose to get to know who we really are, who those that share our lives really are and how we fit into nature.  It will be the best thing that ever happened.