Monday, February 22, 2016

A Sanctuary Atlas

I have been thinking about how to introduce this blog, Jade Owl Atlas. It's a collection of thoughts as I understand the maps of the body, the maps of life, the maps of relationships, and the maps created through inspiration, vision, and intention. It's a collection of maps as I search for sanctuary in all of its forms. A sanctuary is something preserved, treasured, a place of completeness and wholeness. Sanctuary is often considered something out of the way and only when we are pure, but I suggest that sanctuary is something we need everyday, several times a day. And so, this blog is about sanctuary, how to create it, to see it, to be in it.



Three years ago, we moved into our neighbor's house. We knew her for well over 12 years. She was a gardener, a healer, an artist, and in many ways a spiritual mother to us. She left behind her influence, and she left behind a fair amount of stuff. The process happened quickly for her and for us. She didn't have time to get everything, nor did she have room in her new home. As we moved in, we found trash cans, scissors, brooms, and other very mundane everyday things. We also found stilts, some drawings and paintings, and vinyl tablecloths. At first, I scratched my head. Why did she leave this stuff? Why are there pairs of scissors, dustpans, and brooms scattered through the house?

Then as we moved in and settled, when I needed a broom, one was close by. I didn't have to stop what I was doing to hunt for a broom as I did many times in our old house. I didn't have to remember where I put the scissors. I just looked in one of the three logical places that scissors would be kept, and there would be a pair at the ready.

So, we can do this with sanctuary. It doesn't have to be high church on Sunday morning. It doesn't have to be the nature preserve that's a 30 minute drive away and a day long commitment.

I have friends who invite me to walk or run with them at 5am on weekdays and at 7am on Sundays. Many times, I just fritter with my answer as to why I will not join them, usually falling back on the fact that I cannot gear myself to get up and do that with people in the early mornings. But here's the truth. Finally, I said this to someone without even thinking about it. I have to have sanctuary everyday, and those times are sanctuary times for me. We all need sanctuary everyday, but many of us don't realize we need it, and that it's missing in our lives. At the same time one in four adults experience mental illness in a given year. This is an epidemic. It's not because we suddenly know more about mental illness. An estimated 22% of all Americans have a sleep disorder. We have an epidemic, and much of it is because of our lifestyle. We don't give ourselves what we need. We don't value some very basic things that bring stability and satisfaction to our lives. We need sanctuary, and we need to see sanctuary in a much broader and much more ordinary way. We are sick for it.

For the past few centuries, we have made huge improvements, a revolution, really, in the quality of life in this country and across the world. But we have reached its zenith and now need to settle down to what sustains us in body, mind, and spirit. We need to restore sanctuary as something that is vital to us. At this point, it is too precious, and only for certain days, in certain places, and for certain people, only done in certain ways. In the meantime, we have a constant stream of babble and opinion charged with emotions that are pent up inside us - just look at a prime time newscast to see the day's horror, rage, and disgust at the world and the things people do and the way people are. And the conversation is frenzied, endless, feeding on itself, and feeding our elections.

...Back to my neighbor who is so spiritual. At times, I felt I could not understand her, and yet she left behind many ordinary things in a place that she made utterly beautiful. She made her home a sanctuary. So, I realize now that we can hold sanctuary in many places, and in many ways; we can even carry one around in the bags we carry for the day and even in the smallest places like our wallets. We can create sanctuary where there is none. Why not have five sanctuaries? When you cannot get to your Sanctuary (with a capital S), then go to the one closest to you. It would be easy to say that the closest one is in your heart, but I am saying the tangible place. The sanctuary of the material world. A place between heaven and earth where we are completely with our wholeness, where we can pause for just a moment or for a few hours, where we can be safe in our complete wholeness, where we can be at complete ease. Maybe there's not room in the day, or not room in the space for a pipe organ or 300 year old trees in a forest, but maybe there's room for a sentence that inspires you, a shell that takes you to your sanctuary, a miniature doll that reminds you of how children hold sanctuary all the time in play.

This blog is about sanctuary that is ever-present and my pursuit to recognize sanctuary in the world and in my life. My hope is that this blog brings a new understanding to whoever reads it  and touches upon their own way to their own sanctuary.


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