Longing for Home

Let me start by saying that I think, as people, we are always longing for home, but that actually we never quite reach it. Life’s a quest for home that’s never accomplished. I think that this should inform our living and our building in some way, but at the moment I’m not sure how. Should we, for instance, try to build for eternity in order to defy the contingencies that life throws at us? Or should we accept the precarity of our existence and build with only the lightest of touches on the Earth? At the moment I am leaning more towards this lightness of touch option. Our homes are the physical manifestation of who we believe ourselves to be and what is important in our lives. They are also the means by which we achieve some of the key things in our lives such as raising a family, or perhaps running a business from home or simply having a safe refuge from a busy life lived in the outside world. So, I have taken to describing this as ‘celebrating home’. Just as, hopefully, in other aspects of our lives we can aspire to celebration. This celebration is a ‘moveable feast’! Just as each of us has different needs and desires around home, so too our needs change over time. Altering our home or moving to a new place, or building a new home can alter us in return. Looking at the concept of home, our thoughts may focus more on family and relationships, relaxing, sleeping, bathing and intimacy. All these concerns are less overtly materialistic in nature. Home is a place we can all relate to and small enough that we can feel that any changes that we may make will make a real difference to our lives. Home gives substance to our dreams and ambitions that might otherwise remain abstract. We can have rituals and customs around home that we consciously use to try to build our view of ourselves and our place in the world. This, I suggest, might be an easier route than some aim for ‘spiritual growth’ or an evolution of consciousness. Home does not necessarily aim at self-improvement or ‘progress’. It might rather be just change, and sometimes change to something simpler, smaller and quieter. Crossing a threshold into our homes takes us to a place of safety, security and privacy. It also takes us to a place of deep enchantment. I suggest that all of these things are essential ingredients of everyone’s life. Any civilised society should aim to provide this security and sanctity of home for all of its citizens. I have to say that home is also, increasingly, a refuge from a world that seems more dangerous and in a state of collapse. A way of looking at a government’s responsibility towards its citizens might be to say that it’s a duty to protect the sanctity of our homes as well as our lives. That idea might lead to changes in what we might consider to be suitable ‘defence’. As much as we make our homes a safe haven, we must still look outwards to the neighbourhood and our wider community. One aspect of ‘defence’, for instance, is about resilience in the face of all manner of potential threats, not simply defence against armed attackers. There is no defence without community and in terms of home this must mean ‘community of place’. And, whilst it’s a difficult thought to entertain, there’s no community of place without people who offer a certain level of care, responsibility and commitment. All this is within strict boundaries. Ideally, our fellow citizens afford us freedom, recognise our right of privacy, but nonetheless show us civility, conviviality and respect. So, whilst there may be a good home for us somewhere – even in quite a hostile environment – really there is no good home without a strong and healthy community of place. Good community is an art. It relies on participants having a bit of wisdom – in particular, emotional awareness. It helps to be able, if possible, to embrace the ambiguities of human behaviour. It helps to hold ourselves and our stories of self lightly and thus be able to see the gentle humour that lurks beneath every encounter with another person. Just being able to stop for a moment – set aside any stress or anger that might be within us – and see the potential for a gentle world of humour to build others up. That would make so much of a difference! I try to do this as often as I can. It doesn’t come naturally to me, but I keep trying! Okay, I know this sounds cheesy! But the idea I want to introduce here is that the small personal interactions of life – such as the interactions around home, neighbourhood and community – have a big impact on the macro-scale of culture and civil society. Somehow, I believe, finding a way of dealing generously and open-heatedly with the small stuff is going to profoundly affect the way we approach the big stuff. Emotional awareness relates, in particular, to two other places where we benefit from feeling at home – in our bodies and in nature. And of course, these two places are themselves deeply connected. I fear that both our bodies and Nature have taken on the conflicts that are inherent in human culture. I suggest that we cannot cure the wider concerns of society, or the ongoing destruction of nature, without being fully aware of our own bodies. So, finding home involves those three things – place, body and Nature – and the journey home is as much an inward journey as it is an outward one. We are all ‘hobos’ in the end – homeward bound.