Home
Ram Dass, the spiritual leader and teacher, once said: “We are all just walking each other home.” I was thinking of those words recently. In fact, I have been thinking a lot about the concept of home since I moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma nearly a year ago. I moved back here knowing as I entered the eight decade of my life journey, I needed to seriously consider what I was leaving for others to attend to at the end of my journey. I also needed to consider housing which would allow me to be as independent as possible for as long as possible. Tulsa was my choice because three of my four siblings, also in the last third of their life’s, live near Tulsa and Dallas. The fact that Tulsa also had affordable condos entered into my decision
When Ram Dass and other spiritual teachers use the word home, they were thinking of the opportunity to let go of all the ways we fight being ourselves with ourselves. Often as we reach the last months, weeks and days of his life journey we allow ourselves to settle into being at peace. Death is that time when, as far as we know, we rejoin the rest of nature. Dust to dust. We just are.
The goal for most of us is to be at home with ourselves, each other and Mother Earth long before we live those last months, weeks or days. Yet often we confuse home with the illusion of control, a place, a position, status, or something else outside of ourselves. I was listening to a Fresh Air interview with YA author Gary Paulson who recently died. Gary talked about his time doing the Alaska dog sled race, Iditarod; the hardships of it but also the opportunity to establish a relationship with the dogs, especially Cookie who would become his lead dogs. There were times during the preparation in which he would sleep in the kennel with the dogs. During the sleep deprived 938 mile race in which one’s primary concern is care and feeding of the dogs one is acutely aware it is he/she, the dogs, and the elements. I do not recall Mr. Paulson using the term home to describes this sense of being present. This sense of what I am calling home is powerful enough to make Mr. Paulsen and others willing to endure all the hardships of this race. It is more than a sense of accomplishment or something to put on one’s vita.
We all long for those moments when we are finally able to just be; when we forget to ask what or why questions; when we forget to hang on to the past or worry about the future; when we are not thinking about being more than, better than, or even crossing off that next item on the list. For a brief time - perhaps even for a single moment - we just are. Sometimes we can allow such a moment when we are meditating, praying or absorbed into that perfect flower or moon.
I like the version of Japanese culture which I carry in my head of a single flower welcoming me home. Sadly, I know that few Japanese people may actually be able to live this manner, but the blueprint is there. I dream of a minimalist home while simultaneously embracing all the artwork and other symbols of the love I bring with me when I move to a new space. Those are the things which invite me to, paradoxically, let go of things, ideas, or even preconceived notions of what I need to create a new home. I get rid of a lot of “things” each time I have moved to a different dwelling and. yet, i bring a truckload of things. The danger is, of course, that all those symbols of home will weigh me down and keep me from being at home.
Home invites an awareness of the power of friendship - of being with those who are ‘at home’ with me and I with them - to together create moments of a sense of home; those moments of just being present in this life journey without a need to prove one’s worth or right to be; those moments when one is with people who are enough and know that they and you are enough.
Of course, we have always been enough. That has been the core message of all wise teachers. Yet, as long as we are in this life journey, we will need reassurance of that fact; those relationships and those moments which remind us that we are already at home.
Written October 21, 2021
Jimmy F Pickett
coachpickett.org
Ram Dass, the spiritual leader and teacher, once said: “We are all just walking each other home.” I was thinking of those words recently. In fact, I have been thinking a lot about the concept of home since I moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma nearly a year ago. I moved back here knowing as I entered the eight decade of my life journey, I needed to seriously consider what I was leaving for others to attend to at the end of my journey. I also needed to consider housing which would allow me to be as independent as possible for as long as possible. Tulsa was my choice because three of my four siblings, also in the last third of their life’s, live near Tulsa and Dallas. The fact that Tulsa also had affordable condos entered into my decision
When Ram Dass and other spiritual teachers use the word home, they were thinking of the opportunity to let go of all the ways we fight being ourselves with ourselves. Often as we reach the last months, weeks and days of his life journey we allow ourselves to settle into being at peace. Death is that time when, as far as we know, we rejoin the rest of nature. Dust to dust. We just are.
The goal for most of us is to be at home with ourselves, each other and Mother Earth long before we live those last months, weeks or days. Yet often we confuse home with the illusion of control, a place, a position, status, or something else outside of ourselves. I was listening to a Fresh Air interview with YA author Gary Paulson who recently died. Gary talked about his time doing the Alaska dog sled race, Iditarod; the hardships of it but also the opportunity to establish a relationship with the dogs, especially Cookie who would become his lead dogs. There were times during the preparation in which he would sleep in the kennel with the dogs. During the sleep deprived 938 mile race in which one’s primary concern is care and feeding of the dogs one is acutely aware it is he/she, the dogs, and the elements. I do not recall Mr. Paulson using the term home to describes this sense of being present. This sense of what I am calling home is powerful enough to make Mr. Paulsen and others willing to endure all the hardships of this race. It is more than a sense of accomplishment or something to put on one’s vita.
We all long for those moments when we are finally able to just be; when we forget to ask what or why questions; when we forget to hang on to the past or worry about the future; when we are not thinking about being more than, better than, or even crossing off that next item on the list. For a brief time - perhaps even for a single moment - we just are. Sometimes we can allow such a moment when we are meditating, praying or absorbed into that perfect flower or moon.
I like the version of Japanese culture which I carry in my head of a single flower welcoming me home. Sadly, I know that few Japanese people may actually be able to live this manner, but the blueprint is there. I dream of a minimalist home while simultaneously embracing all the artwork and other symbols of the love I bring with me when I move to a new space. Those are the things which invite me to, paradoxically, let go of things, ideas, or even preconceived notions of what I need to create a new home. I get rid of a lot of “things” each time I have moved to a different dwelling and. yet, i bring a truckload of things. The danger is, of course, that all those symbols of home will weigh me down and keep me from being at home.
Home invites an awareness of the power of friendship - of being with those who are ‘at home’ with me and I with them - to together create moments of a sense of home; those moments of just being present in this life journey without a need to prove one’s worth or right to be; those moments when one is with people who are enough and know that they and you are enough.
Of course, we have always been enough. That has been the core message of all wise teachers. Yet, as long as we are in this life journey, we will need reassurance of that fact; those relationships and those moments which remind us that we are already at home.
Written October 21, 2021
Jimmy F Pickett
coachpickett.org
RSS Feed