The time came when it just didn’t work anymore… after about 8 years of hangin’ in, hangin’ on it just didn’t work anymore. Letting go of a home…especially if it is also your place of work and service is traumatic and fearsome, especially if you are not sure where you are to go next. In my case, my home, besides being private and comforting Sanctuary, was also my professional and service base teaching piano, writing, and hosting a variety of peer mentoring circles, like a retreat or periodic workshops in New Moon gatherings, cooking or herbal preparations. Those who have come together in my living room also were letting go of a sacred space apart from the world that served as gentle sanctuary and community for all of us and they too were concerned and saddened wondering if we will be able to stay together in special time-apart space.
My garden…this year in convenient grow boxes.. was my inspiration for this summer’s series on the Greening Spirit, photographing and taking delight in all things green as well as the most beautiful Japanese Maple on my lawn that radiated peace and loveliness in all seasons, always visible from my front door.
I am fortunate though to now have interim time staying with friends who are dear kindred spirits and we are creating for this time on my journey into the unknown a kind of elder “commune” experience. What this has meant for me in an exhausting period of intense sorting, packing, and organizing is he breaking down all that is part of my physical life and environment in a focused review of all that I have been, all that has been part of different chapters of my life.
Photos, years of writings in folders, cookbooks, journals, music and music books, cds, audio tapes and dvds, art supplies, musical instruments, pots and pans, office supplies, candles and ritual objects, shoes and clothes, beauty products, dishes (4 sets) , BOOKS of a number of separate and treasured genres, house decorations, statuary, towels and sheets, knives and forks and cutlery, photographic supplies and cameras, coats and jackets, boots, shoes, garden supplies, grow boxes, clay flower pots and bags of organic soil, seeds for vegetables and flowers and…and….and…canned goods and spices, herbal teas and herbs and…and…much more. And keeping track of that one special tool…my favorite spatula without which I cannot cook!
The enormous challenge has been not directly moving from one place to another to establish another home, which is not possible right yet. Packing for the immediate now- life in the shared interim place with friends and packing all furniture and most items and supplies of my familiar in-progress life into bins, bags and boxes in a storage facility has required an intense all-consuming focus.
My grow boxes came with me….not to go into storage…but to winter outdoors as is recommended, now under the pines in the woods of my new sanctuary. I am learning new things shifting from independence to inter-dependence. I have learned how to make a fire in the woodstove which yes, is all new for me.
But my life in boxes…boxes in the storage facility, boxes here in the basement, boxes in the loft where I am writing, boxes under my bed in my charming little bedroom… Many chapters in a life….in boxes…..the price being paid for a new kind of freedom unfolding…..
From Christine, the Greening Spirit in Transition
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The Greening Spirit 
