Ask Parvati 19: What Is Home? Part 5, Finding Home in Non-Resistance to What Is

 

WHAT IS HOME? PART 5: FINDING HOME IN NON-RESISTANCE TO WHAT IS

(Continued from What Is Home? Part 4: Home In The Vertical Hour)

 

These days, home for me has everything to do with non-resistance to what is. People have been asking me, especially as I have been blogging about it recently, what does it mean to be non-resistant to what is? To me, it has a lot to do with the “vertical hour”, the feeling of home being now.

 

When I feel unsettled, or somehow not quite in the flow, I realize that in some way, I am in resistance. So I go inside and practice non-resistance to what is. As with all things wise, it is really simple, though takes skill and practice. Here is what I do. Give it a try if you like.

 

Wherever I am, whatever I am doing, if I notice I feel disconnected I immediately pause. I notice that I feel unsettled and begin my non-resistance practice. I start simply, with just looking at my surroundings, and noticing what I see. I just watch, without adding stories to things. For example, I see a tree out the window. I just watch it. I notice the tree, the dancing leaves, the light and the colour. I just notice. Should I hear a car drive by, I just notice it. I hear it drive towards me then pass me. So it is. I notice it.

 

Then I feel my body within my surroundings. If I am sitting, I feel my body on the chair. If I am lying, I feel the weight of my body towards the ground. I just notice how I feel. I notice the softness or hardness of the surface supporting me.

 

Then I draw my attention to my breath. What does it feel like? I breathe in. I breathe out. I move my awareness inward and just notice. I feel the quality of breathing. Is it heavy? Is it light? Is it easy? Is it restricted? What is going on?

 

In this, everything begins to settle and I feel not limited to my thoughts, to the sense of being separate in a body. I begin to feel divisiveness dissolve, replaced by energy, flow and abundance. I feel connected and interconnected. I feel flow. I just stay with that, watching.

 

When I start to think about what I will have for dinner, or if I will get that call, or whatever, I notice I am going into thinking and simply and gently bring my attention back to the feeling of being rooted and expansive, here and now.

 

From this place of expansion, I am guided to the next steps in my life, without having to push, manipulate, fear or control. Life arises in each moment. All is unfolding in balanced perfection. All I have to do it get out of the way and enjoy being here, being now, being home.

 

May all beings feel at home.

May all beings feel home now.

May all beings feel home in all that is.

 

Parvati

 

 

 

Ask Parvati 19: What Is Home? Part 4, Home In The Vertical Hour

 

 

WHAT IS HOME? PART 4: HOME IN THE VERTICAL HOUR

(Continued from What Is Home? Part 3: Inner and Outer Home)

 

There is a song I wrote, that I have yet to produce and release, that expresses what home means to me. In it, I sing: “Home is here. Home is now. There’s gold in the dark, as I bow down…” When I am willing to let go of wanting things to be other than they are, though I may feel in the dark, I bow, in humility to what is, and I find the gold in this moment.

 

The relationship with home that I cultivate in my present life is the eternal home found within this perfect moment. In some of my poetry, I call it the “vertical hour”, when time collapses and I rest in the vastness of the infinite.

 

My most recent blog “To Do Or Not To Do” explored some of these feelings. “Wherever you go, there you are”, says Jon Kabat-Zinn. We may run. We may try to avoid. But no matter where we are physically, we bring our self with us. There is a perfection in all that is when we learn to be with what is, rather than what is not. We find meaning in the fullness of the now, rather than dreams of the past or future.

 

More than ever, I am aware within myself of any places that resist that perfection, that are attached to striving, to doing, to identifying as being separate. Those old thought patterns feel painful to me, as I know in my cells that pushing, divisiveness and wanting only lead to suffering. Instead, I focus on interconnection, on flow, on wholeness, on the fullness, the abundance of what is. I don’t push away old tendencies. I just notice them for what they are and open to what I know to be real.

 

When I am surrendered to the whole, I find a sense of place. That place rests in the vertical hour. It is as though when I let go, open up, look around, my feet naturally reach in to dig into the earth. As a result, I expand. As I feel part of the whole, I find meaning in the now. “What is” then takes on the sense of home.

 

(Continues tomorrow with What Is Home? Part 5: Home In Non-Resistance To What Is)

 

 

Ask Parvati 19: What Is Home? Part 3, Inner and Outer Home

 

WHAT IS HOME? PART 3: INNER AND OUTER HOME

(Continued from What Is Home? Part 2: Home In Meditation and Music)

 

 

If April is the cruelest month, then July is the most gracious. Out in my back garden, I look up to the canopy of leaves of a large maple tree that stands guardian at the back of my house. The sky that peeks through is cloudless and as blue and open as the sea. (Maybe this world is upside down and the ocean is really up there and the sky bordered with sand.)

 

The golden sunlight that shimmers through the fluttering leaves feels like the passing thoughts that trickle through my mind. The scent of the juniper bushes near my resting place is sweet, rich and moist. Water in the fountain splashes into the pond. The water flows like the continual, rhythmic flow of my breath. Birds and baby squirrels keep stopping by to check me out. We connect for a moment until they flutter off. Children’s voices, chirping birds, distant whizzing cars and my neighbour’s murmuring music create a symphony of sounds. This moment feels immense, vast and perfectly home.

 

When I was a child, I felt an inner restlessness. The voice within spoke of something more than what I saw brought others temporary happiness. I found joy in singing, through writing music and creating art. I felt alive in connecting with nature and communing with what I now simply call “the unseen”. I always had a sense that there was more than the material. I wanted to touch it, rest into it and be it – whatever that “it” was.

 

The church I went to called “it” God. To me “it” was everywhere, in the very fabric of life. I feel like it touched “it” and found in it a tremendous sense of home when I was recently in the Arctic traveling a few months ago to the North Pole. I went to sing at the top of the world to help raise awareness of the melting polar ice caps. There I also offered healing and prayers to the planet, our mother Earth, the vibrant living being that sustains us all, that is our home.

 

The feeling of singing at the top of the world remains impressed in me, like a tattoo on my soul. In the midst of the infinitely still desert of crystalline snow dusted over the icy ocean I stood upon, I felt as though the whole world was my home and an attentive audience, quietly listening. As I opened my arms, heart and throat to sing, I felt the world was in my body and I was the world. There was immense quiet, a profound presence and aliveness. The Inuit people I met en route seemed to embody that Arctic quiet wisdom. Being with them and traveling there ignited the spark of a baby Inuit in me. In the Arctic desert, I felt home.

 

I have been quite nomadic for most of my adult life - traveled a lot, seen the world, and enjoyed many varied cultures. As I have learned to “think turtle”, as my last blog discussed, I have learned how to find home wherever I may be, inspired by the turtle that carries its home on its back.

 

At first, home was literally my backpack in which I carried my necessities. But I have learned to put my pack down now and lessen the load I carry. Who is “doing” anyway? As my teacher says, when on a traveling train, why still hold onto your luggage? The train is my life, and I am carried by Life, supported by all that is. I let go.

 

We are in constant motion both metaphorically and literally as vibrant beings. I also move a lot as I travel to tour my music. Being so mobile, I learn to surrender to what is and to serve what is right in front of me. My sense of home now comes from my state of internal being. Not as attached to what is happening on the outside, I see life as receiving me. This moment, like a mother, is waiting at the family home door with open arms.

 

I have traveled outwardly through our colourful world. I have also traveled inwardly through my mind, heart and soul as I explore art and music, and as I develop through my spiritual practices. In some ways I could say that I have traveled both internal and external landscapes searching for a deeper meaning of home. Through loving, sharing, expressing and meditating, I have found a deeper, spiritual meaning of home, one that transcends geography and taps into the transpersonal and timeless, one that exists in the “vertical hour”.

 

(Continues tomorrow with What Is Home? Part 4: Home In The Vertical Hour)

 

Ask Parvati 19: What Is Home? Part 2, Home in Meditation and Music

WHAT IS HOME? PART 2: HOME IN MEDITATION AND MUSIC
(Continued from What Is Home? Part 1: The Home Body)

I feel a surrendered sense of home when I meditate. Quiet, perfect, here, now. Sitting practice has been a huge part of my life, feeding me in ways that are truly hard to describe. Everyday I wake up and open to what is. I practice being. In this, I meet the fullness of the moment that a habituated, busy mind would completely eclipse.

The more I practice, the more alive and the less constricted I feel. It is not a linear thing, but evolves, mysteriously unfolding beyond understanding. Through meditation, the relationship I develop with the now feels like a homecoming. Through the dissolve of divisiveness, I return to the one flow of pure consciousness, eventually able to rest in the One. This practice of non-resistance is home to me and also brings me home to the One.

I also feel a surrendered sense of home when I create music. Similar to meditation, the process of creating feels like it moves through me, not something I am doing. When I meditate, as soon as I notice “wow, I am meditating”, the feeling of expansion collapses. Suddenly there is an “I” that is back in the picture and duality returns.

Similarly, when “I” try to create, the juices don’t flow as effortlessly. But when I align myself to watch the flow, to be in service to it, something vast moves, dances and expresses through this body/being. It is pure vitality and joy. It feels like life itself. It is living. It is home. It is.

I have similar feelings when I perform. Though there is always a threshold I need to move through before I get on stage, when performing, life is. The threshold I move though is a form of ego surrender. It is like jumping off a cliff, to find you have wings. In the surrender, there is the death of a divisive self that thinks it is in control, giving birth to a timeless being. In this way, performing is a meditation.

As I meditate, I either witness inner resistance or expand into the bliss of letting go. When I step out on stage, I face that same letting go. In that letting go, I find home. As I perform, there is a sense of something moving through me that is so much greater, broader than a limited sense of “me”. It is like my body is dancing. My voice is singing. My soul is expressing. I am joy. I just am. My mind open, quiet, focused, present. Performing is very much home for me.

The character I play in my show is called Natamba. Clad in gold, like the light of pure consciousness, Natamba brings the timeless message: “Be Here. I Am. Now.” As I step into the costume, I feel a transformation take place. Something expands. Something downloads. Something aligns. The character Natamba represents home to me, the feeling of expressing a more expanded self. That is part of my joy of art and theatre. On stage, I can express timeless truths. Those truths are home to me.

I believe we each find home in things that give us meaning, that make us feel connected to something much greater than our selves. We find home when we love, when we share. Home lives in a transcendent place, beyond “me”. True home lives in “I am”. When we touch the infinite, we have touched home.

(Continues tomorrow with What Is Home? Part 3: Inner and Outer Home)

Ask Parvati 19: What Is Home? - Part 1, The Home Body

 

WHAT IS HOME?

 

Dear Parvati, I have traveled a lot and found many places to be beautiful, inspiring, even places I thought I could call home. But I feel I have not found home yet. Or maybe, I don’t really know what home means. I was curious, what does home mean to you?

 

WHAT IS HOME? PART 1: THE HOME BODY

 

Home means many things to me. As far as I can remember, I have felt like the world was my home. I speak several languages and feel comfortable in many cultures, with varied people. Perhaps it is no coincidence that my name is Parvati, daughter of the earth. I feel very connected to this planet in a cellular, soulful and spiritual way.

 

I am not much of a homebody, in that I have traveled a lot and lived out of a backpack for much of my adult life. But I could say that one way I find home is in my body, my body being a temporary place of inhabitation while I am in this world. I feel that this body is part of it all, connected to everything. It is made of the very stuff that makes up all matter. So for me, literally, my home is the world.

 

We have all heard the saying, “home is where the heart is”. Home is where we feel belonging. Where we feel accepted, whole, understood, received, grounded and alive. While I had friends over at my home last month, I was arrested by a momentary “a-ha!” when everything felt absolutely perfect. I felt completely supported, loved and accepted as though everything was in its perfect place. I felt profoundly at home.

 

Our birthplace may be home, where we have memories from our childhood, where our foundations were built. Montreal is my birthplace and is definitely my hometown. When I travel there with those that know me now, not then, I am told that I express a freedom and expansion in Montreal that is evident. My body language changes. I feel more relaxed. There is something in the air, in the light on the streets and buildings, in people’s attitudes, in the way we interact that just says, “home” to me - deeply.

 

I feel similar feelings about speaking French. It is, I say, the language of my heart and home has a lot to do with the heart. When I get tired, I have been known to just start speaking French, without even noticing I am doing so. People have also noticed how my personality changes when I speak French. I feel like an inner part of me comes alive. English for me is a more cerebral language, more practical and touching a place of worldliness. French reaches in to touch my emotions and reveals another inner world with greater ease.

 

No matter how many times I leave Canada, nor how many amazing connections and adventures I have abroad, somehow coming back always feels like home. I am not just saying this because it is Canada Day weekend! There is something about the trees, the air and the land that just says home.

 

Surely this has to do with the familiar. I have spent most of my life in Canada. There is something about familiarity that breeds the feeling of home. Familiarity feels grounding and stabilizing. Upon what else would a home be built?

 

We may find home in the familiar. We may find home in our sense of place and accomplishments that we achieve at work. We may find home in family, landscape, territories and feelings of patriotism. These may add a sense of purpose, belonging and meaning to our life.

 

However much I find home in something physical, there is something deeper that brings a true feeling of home to me. One way I touch the feeling of home and find meaning in my life is through my meditation practice and my creative work. In those, I rest in a timeless home not bound by borders or bodies. There I am.

 

(Continues tomorrow with What Is Home? Part 2: Home In Meditation and Music)