InnerPoetry.com

I love to read and though I read a lot of non-fiction, the truth is I LOVE novels, stories that reach out and draw me in, pull me into their arms and carry me to some other shore, into the hearts and lives of people who all seem to hold pieces of me within them. And my very favorite books are those that create a deep sense of place…that connect their characters in some visceral way to the land and space they inhabit. For me, it is those that write of the sea, for I know in my own Florida bred bones the very voice of water.What in this world awakens your senses?

Stories. We all have them. Our lives are one. Many really. Chapters connecting one to the other, building upon themselves in the growing and becoming of who we are. While hiking this past weekend, my 3 year old son (quite a storyteller in his own right), in response to my comment about how beautiful the view and land were, said that “God is writing a story.” And so it is.

And as each of us knows from high school English, a story consists of a few key elements - characters, plot, climax, theme and setting. Our lives too contain these elements. Whether we know it or not, claim it or not, we are the heroes and heroines of our own stories. We drive the plot that is our life, create and weather through the ups and downs. And live within the context of our settings. I feel perhaps that I will speak of each of these over time. Today though, I focus on setting…on creating and holding a sense of place in our lives.

What does it mean to hold a sense of place…? I imagine it as deeply inhabiting our skin, awakening to the sensual interplay between body, environment and inner experience. At its very best all meld into what feels like the snuggling in of spirit and skin, the tickling of memory that cannot quite be captured, something ancient, something of Home.

What do you feel, sense, imagine when you hear the phrase… “a sense of place” ? What creates the experience for you? What is the experience?

I have lived in three states, each drawing me in differently. On the coast of Florida as a child and adolescent I knew myself made of the sea. The smell of salt and sun, fish and seaweed…the feel of limbs moving beneath dark waters, sunlight flashing and rolling over waves…the sense of power and wisdom, the promise of mysteries large and deep waiting to be explored. Whenever life overwhelmed, saddened or frightened me, whenever I felt lost, alone or without answers…I sought out the ocean. It filled me, spoke to me, healed me with its beauty and eternal presence. It held something of me and offered it graciously with open arms whenever I needed.

What is the land of your childhood…your youth? How does it speak to you? What gives you strength or helps you remember who you are?

In my thirties I moved to Tennessee, quite a distance from my sun-drenched youth. But, as is always the case, Life…God…knew what I needed. A grounding and the experience of winter. Big open skies that dropped upon me and hills that rose and dipped, hills rooted deeply in the earth. And trees that lost their leaves…that gave all they had in return for the blooming that would come. Winters cold and white, raw and real, that lifted up and exposed everything without fear or mistrust. Yes, a trust in the cycles of all things, in the birth that follows every death, in the beauty hidden and always revealed. I remember standing in a thicket of trees my first winter, standing there, wanting to get closer, knowing for the first time, feeling it in the vast inner expanse found beyond blood and bone, in the core of my being, what it was to surrender, and what it felt like to be embraced by Love larger than myself. These gifts the fertile land of Tennessee gave me.

Reflect on the cycles of nature…do you see them in your own life? Feel them in your own being?

Now, in the great mountains of Colorado I seek the wisdom I know every inch of land has to share. The Rocky Mountains reach toward the sky above, dramatic in their strength, watching over the land as they have for millions of years. There is no boundary here, no way not to grow. Inner meets and outer and all stretches wide and tall, as far as the eye can see. Looking up, listening closely, the voice swirling down on the wind laughs at all impossibility.

What qualities do you imagine for the sky? Water? Mountain? Other landscapes? How do you connect to these qualities within yourself?

There is a fourth state…one in which I have not lived, but that has owned a part of me since my first visit. One that jogged those forgotten and still lost memories more than any other. Maine…along the coast where mountain and ocean meet, where the two lands I have known and loved become one. If the soul has a place it calls home upon the earth, a place it is ever drawn to, for me it is Maine.

Where do you feel your soul most intensely present?

A sense of place…to find it I draw breath and dip into the connection that lives between my singular being and the whole of what is. I find this most intensely in the simplest of moments…the drifting scent of pine along a mountain trail, that of a fire burning before me while I sit curled on a couch sipping hot tea, the vision of sailing masts dotting a harbor, a dock reeking of things old and dead, a good warm meal made rich by the sound of laughter, a sweet memory, a wildflower given by a small and desperately beautiful hand that reaches for mine. In these instants I am touched by all that is Divine. Beauty revealed and experienced. Love breathed out and made form.

Take a moment and reflect on the small moments of grace you have known. Become aware throughout your days of these offerings.

I have gone on long now, trying to share my understanding of a sense of place. All with the hope of dropping you into your own. Stop for a moment and be where you are. Open your senses, open your heart…let them dance and intertwine. What is seen, heard, smelled, felt, touched? What arises from your belly in the small moments of awareness? Open yourself and let life sink in…Open yourself and let life flow out. Where the two meet, wonder awaits.