A Window is Where the Wall is Absent

The life impulse to express and to connect arises in me and in all of us. This blog is a celebration of these life impulses. Please feel free to join in the conversation or to just visit. There is a Family Photo Album beneath the posts so you can "meet" my family and I. Welcome!

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Home







I once came across a poem that keeps surfacing in consciousness at odd and expected moments. I read it slowly from time to time, drinking it in, and every time it opens a new doorway within.


PLEASE COME HOME

by Jane Hooper

Please come home.  Please come home.
Find the place where your feet know where to walk
And follow your own trail home.

Please come home.  Please come home into your own body,
Your own vessel, your own earth.
Please come home into each and every cell,
And fully into the space that surrounds you.

Please come home. Please come home to trusting yourself,
And your instincts and your ways and your knowings,
And even the particular quirks of your personality.

Please come home.  Please come home and once you are firmly there,
Please stay home awhile and come to a deep rest within.
Please treasure your home.  Please love and embrace your home.
Please get a deep, deep sense of what it's like to be truly home.

Please come home.  Please come home.
And when you're really, really ready,
And when there's a detectable urge on the outbreath, then please come out.
Please come home and please come forward.
Please express who you are to us, and please trust us
To see you and hear you and touch you
And recognize you as best we can.

Please come home.  Please come home and let us know
All the nooks and crannies that are calling to be seen.
Please come home, and let us know the More
That is there that wants to come out.

Please come home.  Please come home
For you belong here now.  You belong among us.
Please inhabit your place fully so we can learn from you,
From your voice and your ways and your presence.

Please come home.  Please come home.
And when you feel yourself home, please welcome us too,
For we too forget that we belong and are welcome,
And that we are called to express fully who we are.

Please come home.  Please come home.
You and you and you and me.

Please come home.  Please come home.
Thank you, Earth, for welcoming us.
And thank you touch of eyes and ears and skin,
Touch of love for welcoming us.

May we wake up and remember who we truly are.

Please come home.
Please come home.
Please come home.






~
Gratitude to Cynthia Bourgeault, author of The Wisdom Way of Knowing, where I found this poem: http://www.contemplative.org/cynthia.html

21 comments:

Leslie said...

Dear Colleen,
Thank you for posting this beautiful poem...there is a deep resonance in the heart. The same calling to come home that is felt during the 'window sitting' meditations...particularly, it seems, at the end of each meditation where the Heart of Home seems to make itself known to it self. That truly must be the real Home calling us to just Be.
XOXO
-Leslie

No One In Particular said...

All are always home.

Colleen Loehr said...

Hi Leslie,
Yes, being in the Heart is Home. Thank you for being here.
XOXO,
Colleen

Colleen Loehr said...

Hi Suzanne,
There's no place but here, no place but home. Funny how a sense of estrangement from essence arises...and subsides, like the crest and trough of a wave. There was a great video of Alan Watts posted yesterday on Facebook by Heather Fester that talks about this.
Thank you for pointing out that we are all always home.

Leslie said...

Hi Colleen,
Is it possible to see through the feeling of estrangement?
XOXO
-Leslie

Mystic Meandering said...

"...follow your own trail home...trusting yourself...your instincts and your ways and your knowings" - until you feel it in your heart - until you KNOW what "Home" feels like... No matter what the "gurus" say...:)

I love what Leslie said: "The Heart of Home makes Itself known to Itself. That truly must be the real Home...just Being." Amen!

Much love - Christine

Tim Goulding said...

Thank you Colleen.
What a lovely poem. What a lovely community of fellow travelers on the pathless path you have around you.
If words could only do justice to this intuition of Heart that we are!

Colleen Loehr said...

Hi Leslie,
The feeling of estrangement arises and it is possible to see through it...Thank you for pointing this out.
XOXO,
Colleen

Colleen Loehr said...

Hi Christine,

Trusting that inner felt sense and knowing (instead of relying so much on books and teachings) wakes up a vivid sense of being alive. Of course I've been alive every moment of my life, but it's wonderful to bring full attention to that fact and to trust in this life force that is here, that I am.

Yes- Leslie expresses it beautifully- Being itself is the real Home.

Love and gratitude to you,
Colleen

Colleen Loehr said...

Hi Tim,

Words fall so short of expressing this intuition of Heart that we are...and yet words can be a jumping board for attention to leap into the reality beyond language.

I love this community of fellow travelers on this pathless path- what an unimagined and unexpected gift this has been in my life! It's a joy to go from blog to blog- almost like visiting the living room of one friend after the next- and to have friends visit here. My temperament has generally tended to be more towards the solitary-type, and now there is a sense of isolation dissolving through communications with fellow pilgrims all over the world- how wonderful! Thank you for pointing this out Tim. All love and good will to you, Colleen

Leslie said...

Hi Dear Sweet,'Lovely COmmunity',
This poem warms my heart. There has been a forgetfullness of belonging and some unfortunate incidences to reinforce that feeling of estrangement so the call to come home -- to where we really belong -- is a very sweet one. Trusting Mind...or trusting that home...or trusting one's true Self must be the stepping inside the front gate to that Home. Once inside the gate...who knows? Maybe anything can happen.
XOXO
-Leslie

Colleen Loehr said...

Trust is the way in- thank you for these words Leslie, they ring true.

Leslie said...

Dear Colleen,
"The feeling of estrangement arises and it is possible to see through it..." -- How to see through that? The estrangement seemed to (somehow) fracture a previously very deep trust. I am at a loss as to how to fix that.
XOXO
-Leslie

Colleen Loehr said...

Hi Leslie,
Thank you for your comment and I look forward to responding tomorrow. I have less access to the blog (I am unable to access from work) and won't be home till late (going direct to Jack's football game from work). Just wanted to let you know that I'm glad to receive your comment and will respond as soon as I can.
XOXO,
Colleen

Leslie said...

XOXO
-Leslie

Colleen Loehr said...

Hi Leslie,

You write of the "fracture of a previously very deep trust" and of not knowing how to fix that. I'm sitting with this and no words are arising here. I am thinking of you and sending good will and will write again as words arise.
XOXO,
Colleen

Leslie said...

Thank you Colleen. Your open honesty and forthrightness are deeply appreciated. I'm sitting with it too. Hopefully, at some point, Clarity will outshine whatever pain of separation and fear of being stuck is felt.
XOXO
-Leslie

Susannah said...

Thank you for sharing this Colleen, it is beautiful. :-)

Susannah x

Colleen Loehr said...

Hi Leslie and Susannah,

Thank you for your comments and for your being here.

With love,
Colleen

Anonymous said...

Amazing poem. I really like this one..."let their be peace on earth and let it begin with me" Sometimes I take peace for granted and seek only excitement.

Colleen Loehr said...

Beautiful comments Mary. It's a joy to see you here.
With all my love,
Mom

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