the generosity of space

I feel disoriented. I feel depleted. I feel a bit displaced. I'd love to say that all this letting go and moving from one adventure to another has been effortless and easy but it's not true. There's enough of 'me' (old patterns of thought, action, and belief) still living in this Martha body-mind that the week or 10 days leading up to our departure from 186 Iron Kettle Road in Warner, NH were demanding and difficult. 

burning up some symbols of our experience

It's been a big, exhausting period of high energy output. We're out. We've officially sold our home and we're in a bardo between worlds. Most of our belongings were sold or given away. Some have found their way to a storage unit awaiting relocation. Other objects, mostly tools, find themselves housed in a utility trailer parked at a friend's home.

This morning I was finally writing in my journal and getting caught up with myself. I haven't made time for this kind of indulgence for nearly two weeks. I reflected on feelings of sadness that in all the to-do'ing and planning, organizing, and strategizing leading up to our move, I failed to really sink into the experience of being present with the space that was dissolving around me.

The space of 186 Iron Kettle is no longer there in the same way. A new space is happening there, growing out of the one left behind by the four of us (Bradford, the dogs, me) and all the people that showed up in that space over the 2+ years we called it 'home.' As I moved through my last meetings with clients in early August, I was aware of saying 'goodbye' not so much to the humans as I was saying 'goodbye' to the dimension of connection that was fostered in the space between us and around us.

Space seems to have an energy all to itself, perhaps not so different from a human or an animal. Over the years, Bradford and I gave ourselves to the space through cleaning, clearing, designing, building, and creating. More significantly, however, the space gave itself to us. The offerings were less tangible but maybe more enduring. Space seems to draw us into an experience of absolute connection. A person doesn't exist outside of a space and yet most of us take this kind of generosity for granted.

the loaded rigs

I can't capture the sense of space I felt at 186 Iron Kettle for you in words. I can't capture it through images. Hours spent sitting on the front porch listening to the wisdom of wind through the tree's high branches to the west of our property. Being enveloped in the truth of 'no-time,' watching the skies revision themselves through cloud and color from a rocking chair looking north. Light being momentarily caught in a diamond of dew holding carelessly to a lilac leaf like falling didn't matter. Nothing I write will deliver something true to you about the space I was living in nor help you understand how this space affected me.

I don't feel sad so much because our time on Iron Kettle is over as I feel regret for not taking more moments to sink in and lose myself in the experience of its dying. Oh, that I could fall more deeply into love with every passing, ephemeral experience - see that it's never coming back and allow myself to be forever altered. That's a lot to ask for but the rewards make it worthwhile.

Fortunately, our last day living in Warner found us driving to Grafton Pond before sunrise. If you ever have an opportunity to paddle out on a quiet lake, free of motors, in the moments before dawn, don't pass it up. Allow yourself to paddle out and be swallowed by the fullness of silence. Allow yourself to get lost in the weight of emptiness. Fill yourself with the abundance of space as it reveals its generous gifts.

If the space of 186 Iron Kettle Road can hear me, I say 'thank you.' To you I will dedicate more presence, more awakeness, and more awe to the beauty that is always being offered up from the world around me.

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