Ends – and Begins
ALMOST ALL OF US have somewhere we call home. Whether it’s a large, grand house or simply a corner in a shared room, if we’re lucky we have a place we can claim as our own. Each and every one of us sees home in a different way: some of us might claim we barely think about home – it’s simply a place out of the elements where we eat and sleep. Others would insist that home is a vital part of life: a solid centre in which we can feel safe and secure. Yet more of us regard our homes as a symbol of taste and status, a means of indulging creativity or proving our social standing. However we experience home there is no doubt that the places in which we live are becoming more and more important to us. There is a huge proliferation of interest in houses, home-building, interior design and decoration. The newsstands are full to bursting with magazines on homes and gardens; coffee tables groan with glossy books showing perfect homes. Turn on the television and someone will be telling you how to revamp a kitchen or hide a radiator.
There’s far more to this than simply another fashionable trend. We have a deep collective yearning for an idealized image of home – for ideal homes. It’s as though we feel that if we could only make our homes look right, they would somehow be right. We would live perfect lives in our perfect homes. But if we think we can create a happy home from the pages of a magazine, if we think we can buy our way to a healing home, we are deluding ourselves.
This almost desperate interest in the external trappings of home – the newest colours, the latest furniture, the best cooker, the freshest curtains – disguises a more profound longing. In our hearts we want to come home to a real home. A real home is a place that nurtures us on every level. It gives us the creature comforts that make our bodies feel relaxed and comfortable. It provides the security and serenity that allow our minds and emotions peace and security. Above all, it nourishes our souls. A real home is not a show-home packed to the gills with expensive furniture, decorated by the most fashionable interior designer: it is a living space that has the power to make us feel safe in a troubled world. It is our refuge, our sanctuary – a place we can walk into and feel a sense of relief and relaxation as we shut the world behind us.
Some homes do this automatically. Others need our help. Sadly, over recent years we have been neglecting our homes or, more accurately, we’ve been ignoring the spirits of our homes. A home is far more than a physical structure; it is a living entity with a soul of its own. In the past the home was honoured as a deity – it was considered to have its own spirit and a host of attending spirits. All over the globe people acknowledged and venerated their homes, treating them with love and respect. Not to do so would be to bring trouble and strife on the house and its inhabitants. Nowadays we treat our homes poorly. Often we allow them to become dirty, cluttered and neglected. And even when we do carefully maintain and preserve the home, we run into the danger of turning our homes into stiff, stilted places of fashion and decorum – they look good but they don’t necessarily feel good. These ‘look-good’ houses exist because we have left out one vital part of the equation: we have ignored the home’s vital living energy, its spirit.
We cannot achieve true peace of mind and spirit unless we reconnect with our homes at this deeper level. Without a true home we have no barrier between us and the ever-increasing stress of everyday life and work. A home with a heart embraces us when we walk through the door; we can almost feel it wrap its healing around us. Its aim and purpose is to protect and soothe, to bring us home in every sense. So one of the most important tasks we can perform for our physical and psychological health is to, quite literally, come home.
THE ART OF HOME-MAKING
But we seem to have lost the old instinctive art of home-making in its truest, most ancient form. We know how to arrange pictures but not how to make a house feel warm and welcoming. We are experts in knocking out fireplaces but amateurs when it comes to putting in atmosphere and feeling. Looking at the often sterile spaces we call home can be depressing and can bring on feelings of hopelessness. But we can easily change the situation. Our home-making skills haven’t really been lost – they are simply crafts which have become rusty through disuse. We can swiftly relearn the steps to creating a true home, to ensouling the home. All it takes is a little time and effort – and a large dose of imagination and wonder. What is needed is nothing less than the re-enchantment of our homes – to endow them with magic, warmth and joy. We need to bring back the life and soul of the home, honour its power and healing, respect its spirit.
It’s a case of relearning the old ways: how to cleanse not just the physical fabric of the house, but its spiritual energy too; how to sense and alter atmosphere; how to intuit what your home needs and what it doesn’t want at all. Rediscovering the spirit of your home is about bringing the natural world into your space, giving play to all the elements and the life force they embody. It’s about allowing your senses lull rein: filling your home with delicious sounds and scents, textures and tastes.
On an even deeper level, the spirit of your home can help you find out about yourself – who you are and who you’d like to be. Your home represents who you are, and by changing your surroundings you can certainly start the process of becoming someone closer to your true, authentic Self. It’s a journey of discovery and transformation that can alter your entire life. Finally, you arrive back where you always wanted to be. You come home.
I know it’s true because I’ve seen it and felt it and experienced it myself. I’ve lived in places without soul: they have felt lost and empty and I have felt lost and empty living in them. I’ve worked in buildings which have truly been ‘sick’ – and the people who worked in them were often depressed and frequently sick themselves. On the other hand, I have walked into places which are just so ‘right’, so totally imbued with spirit that my soul almost sighed with pleasure. These are the kinds of place in which you feel instantly at home. You can drop off your cares at the threshold and sink into a sacred space of peace, a true sanctuary.
The aim of this book is to show you how to turn a simple home into just that, a true sanctuary, a place of laughter, joy, peace and welcome. Many of the ideas in this book are almost too obvious to be true: They are simple, straightforward common sense. You’ll have that feeling of ‘well, of course, I knew that’ – and you did, you do. We all know this information at some level in our psyche because it is our common heritage. Whether you believe in past lives, the collective unconscious or the simple laws of genetics, we have all venerated the home in our pasts: we have all nurtured the sacred flame of the hearth, the symbolic Mother, the earth. At some level in our psyche we know all about honouring the spirits of the home, of ‘cleansing’ space as well as cleaning floors, of filling a sacred space with healing colour, sound and light.
But at a more conscious level we are maybe not so sure. While much of this book is common-sense, other ideas might sound far-fetched and even ludicrous to those with an overly rational mind. I tend to talk in terms of archetypes (because I happen to feel very comfortable with Jung’s work and these concepts). I also happily talk about subtle energy because I have felt it move both in my body and in my home. If you find such esoteric ideas difficult, don’t worry. You can still have a healing, soulful home without understanding or even believing a word of the theory or the mystical side of the equation.
Use this book
