Home at Home

Hi everyone,

After my last post, some of you responded "Great, you found home inside yourself and all that, but where ARE you??"

I wasn't trying to be evasive. I just hadn't settled somewhere yet.

The funny thing is, where I found home, metaphorically, is... where I'm now home! I'm living here on Vashon Island at the same place where I spent almost a month in self-retreat.

Cedar Spring Farm, Vashon Island, WASHINGTON!

I didn't know I'd be coming back to live here when I last wrote. It took leaving again, trying to live in a city again, and mostly struggling with some inner conflict, to really allow myself to consider that yes, I could live in this beautiful place I love so much.

A little taste of what I opened my eyes to most mornings in August. 

Cedar Springs Farm is the family farm of Barb and Doug, friends I met through the network of Nonviolent Communication trainers. Doug's family has lived on this land for four generations. They've had a dream for a long time of building a community of people deeply committed to nonviolence and peacebuilding. It's sweet that my moving here helps make a dream come true for me and for them, as well. There are now five NVC trainers living here or near here. There's also a farmer here living out his dream of building a sustainable food system. I've been loving living on a working farm!

Helping out at the farmers market. Yum.

And, of course, there's the work I'm doing, which I'm just loving. Here's a workshop we're teaching here in a few weeks:

I'll write more soon, but just wanted to let you all know where I am these days...

Specifically, I plan to share an update about the funds many of you helped raise to support nonviolent communication training for people from Palestine. I'm so excited about the beautiful way it's playing out!

So many plums ripe at once! Getting them ready for the dehydrator.

If you want to contact me, I'm back on my cell phone, and here's my snail mail address:

12108 SW 148th ST, Vashon Island, WA, 98070

Much love to all of you!

The Treasure

When I was a child I loved to read a story about a man who leaves home at the urging of a dream to dig up a treasure in the capital city.

He travels a long way. When he finally arrives at the capital city, he can't get to the place in his dream. He wanders around, unsure what to do. Finally, he gets another clue: go home and look under the kitchen stove.

He turns around and makes the long journey home. He starts digging. Sure enough, there's a chest full of gold right there under his kitchen floor.

***

This past year I've spent looking for a home. I've traveled to cities and forests and prairies and islands. I've slept on trains and walked on dirt roads. I've listened closely to my heart.

Sometimes she spoke in clipped commands. Other times I could barely make out little whimpers. Many times, even when she was loud and clear, I resisted.

But eventually, each time, I said, "Yes."

Each time, I looked at what was possible, and I said, "I want to risk my whole heart."

There was so much beauty. I found I could do things I didn't know were possible.

There were also spectacular failures. As you might have guessed, I didn't find the treasure in the capital city.

Maine friends, I can imagine you reading that and saying, "Hooray! She's coming back to Maine!"

It's true that I found the treasure right where I started from. It's true that it was there with me in Portland, Maine.

Like the man in the story, when I got to the beautiful spot from my dream where I thought the treasure would be, it wasn't there. All I had was my own broken heart. My own humble kitchen stove.

I listened again. There were no words at first, only sobbing. I kept listening. Finally, my aching heart whispered, "Come home." As quickly as I could, I went back there. I cleared the space, and I started digging.

I kept digging.

For weeks, by myself, I dug and I dug and I dug.

I'm a bit shy to share what I uncovered. Of course you already know. It's so simple, and so tender. And perhaps my shyness has to do with how... universal it is. My story is the story of everyone. It's the journey we're all on, each of us with our own particulars.

I found the treasure. I found my home.

It's not a place.

I have lived on the lip of insanity, wanting to know reasons, knocking on a door. It opens. I've been knocking from the inside!

- Rumi

Where I sat digging.