I'm just sitting up from a yoga nidra (= lying down, deep rest) meditation. I look out over the grass bowl of a field with a few patches of small yellow flowers. The bushes and trees are swaying, the birds chatting.
"All of these beings here... they are already home," I say aloud.
"I'm already home, too, then. If they are already home, so am I."
If I'm already home – home in my body, in my being, in this nature place – then the grasping, the hiding, the biting, even the yearning, the craving, the seeking – is any of it necessary?
However desperate or earnest, it's all still coming from a place of separateness and wanting something that hasn't yet been found.
If I'm already home, how does my state of being change? What about my state of mind? The state of my relationships? How I go about doing things in the world?
As I swim with this already-home-ness, I feel breath in my core, rather than at the top of my shoulders as I often do. My chest, my back – they both feel wide, open, easy. My eyes search around trying to find some fault in this knowing, trying to find some break in the pattern of everybody already being home.
I've written plenty of times here about my yearning to feel a deep sense of belonging and to support others in feeling their own. I feel the weight of all the energy that regularly goes towards striving for and seeking connection. What happens to all this energy when the car has already arrived? When there's no need to drive anywhere?
Oh, I've found a blip in the pattern: can adventure still happen? Of course! It's not like all of us already-home-beings find all meaning and purpose in staying in place, feeling our already-home-ness and basking in the glory of already-being-here. The already-home-ness gets to travel in the car with me when I want to go visit the beach with Diona. It gets to pulse through my spine and thighs when we sit at the coffee shop and I scarf down a bagel sandwich and drink an unsweetened oat milk matcha latte way too fast. The already-home-ness gets to laugh knowingly when the owner-barista-baker talks about how the gluten-free vegan muffins aren't flakey and crumbly but are very, very, very dense.
Dr. Robert McDonald, creator of the Destination Method said in a coaching session I recently witnessed, "I must be strong before I belong." For me, the strength is the sense of safety I feel when I close my eyes to sink into the yoga nidra meditation. I may not have visited this forest where this Airbnb is tucked in before, but I've sat in many forests nearby over my six years here. I'm strong and steady in my inner knowing that that's a Towhee bird rustling over in the bushes. I'm strong and steady in my body with the knowing that I can actually rest into this place. What a joy – what a privilege this is. Does this inner strength give way to inner belonging? Yes, it seems so.
It seems that inner belonging gives way to inner strength, too. In my already-home-ness, my spine naturally expands to its naturally long length. In my already-home-ness, I ask the questions that need to be asked while Diona and I are in the midst of our work together. The self-doubt is calmed by the embrace of already-home-ness.
I let the already-home-ness float with me as I quietly (my housemate is still sleeping) make my oatmeal with ground flax seeds, moringa powder, and creamy lightly roasted peanut butter and then bring it back out to my yoga mat out on the patio to eat. I eat with audible "yum's" and then place the bowl to the side, some green moringa powder still at the edges. I stretch my arms and look out over the field of already-home-ness. I roll up my yoga blanket and mat, walk in and out bringing item by item back indoors. I take my time. I know there's no rush.
I have the mat rolled up in my hands, it's the last item that needs to come inside. I turn around before closing the door and I hear something (from somewhere within me? from the field?). The 'something' that I hear seems to amount to this: "you'll forget, and then you'll remember. Then you'll forget again and remember again. You're a part of it all, the forgetting, the remembering, you're not separate, you're a part of all of this."
You're not separate. You're a part of all of this. You're not separate. You're a part of all of this. You'll forget, then you'll remember and through it all, you're already home, you're already home, you're already home.
Til soon, dear already-home reader, til soon,
Cassandra