100 Days for Mandalas – Session 3 – Home
December 9th, 2013
This is the last week of 100 Days for Mandalas. This session has actually turned into 120 Days for Mandalas. I found the word prompts caused a deep diving into the meaning of each word. The word HOME was the one that took me a long time to really examine. What is “home” now, in the past and in the future?
I looked for images of houses I, or my children, created. I also found photos I took or old vintage photos of places that have been “home” for me. My decoupage bird house above was the subject of a former blog. My mother kept many things, including a mother’s day card I made in grade school. I took a photo of that painting and used it to remember my first home, my childhood home. In the remembering, memories of great joy and sorrow both surfaced. This home shaped me in so many ways and is always within me.
My home away from home as a child, and a place that lives in my heart is my Grandparent’s dairy farm in Wisconsin where I spent so much of my childhood. The land of rolling hills and small farms lives in my body and will always be with me. I took this photo last year when I visited the farm of my Aunt, Uncle and cousin who still live there. Here I spent many hours in the woods and fields going to get the cows and finding a home in nature.
My own “hero’s journey” was to leave a Lake Wobegon life and go off to the West Coast. Here I found mountains, ocean and fairylands of nature that were not part of the Midwest flat lands. I discovered meditation which took me to more mountains in Switzerland and other places around the world. It also brought me to a place of listening to the yearning for my spiritual search, which I could have never done without leaving “home”. After a time, I returned to the Midwest states that border the Mississippi river and have lived in cities on those shores for over three decades. During one of my six week meditation courses I stayed in a Swiss Chalet on the water just like in this old vintage postcard.
My home has been St. Louis since 1991. My house is my ashram, where my children grew up, my marriage has grown and where I am at “home”. It has nurtured me in my journey of finding and living my truth.
This is a small print of a painting my son did in grade school. On this mandala I wrote the words “Heaven’s Gate”. This is the name of my home. I discovered, or was lead to, this name in a meditation when I wanted to name my home. I hadn’t thought of the words for over twenty years. In the meditation the words came to mind and felt perfect. Only a few days later, did I realize that the building I was married in, is called “Heaven’s Gate”. The building is in a city park in Madison, WI. The beautiful small old stone building was originally a Synagogue that had that name. The city moved it to a public park to save it from being torn down.
I also named my garden during the same meditation – “Heaven’s Wood”. My garden is also my “home”, where I feel at home. The pergola is a place I sometimes meditate and often sit to be in the garden. On the front cross piece of wood I had a quote by George Washington Carver engraved. It is: “When I touch a flower, I am touching infinity”.
MEDITATION PROMPT – HOME. In this time of short light, let yourself sink into the feeling of light, and home, that is inside your heart. Let that light shine into the short days and long nights.
MEDITATION MEDITATION – Mandala Meditation – Home-1
UPCOMING BLOGS – Mandalas created in my November Mandala Workshop will be shared in upcoming blogs. There was so much creativity shared and brought forth during the workshop, I can’t wait to share it on this blog.
I have also feel my camera calling, so more photo blogs will be coming.
NEXT SESSION FOR 100 DAYS FOR MANDALAS – Sometime after the New Year begins, no date set.
ENJOY AND CREATE – BRING YOUR WARM LIGHT TO THESE DAYS OF SHORT LIGHT AND COLD.
