Our Home is a Cultivated, Holy Place

A poem and a prayer

The concept of a “cultivated space” came to me during a trip to Bali. It’s the idea that the matter we interact with can be injected with our intentions and our energy.

The idea that we can cultivate the energetic quality of an actual place, land, home, altar, room, etc through intention and attention is one that really resonates and fascinates me.

Bali is a great example of this because everyone there is always creating little offerings and altars. Every morning you wake up and there are marigolds and banana leaves full of food and incense burning around every corner, in every home, and business.

It creates a sense of magic everywhere and this really does affect our experience of a place. I don’t know anyone who has been to Bali and wasn’t struck by the mystical nature of it.

If I would have grown up in Bali, I would have loved this aspect of spending so much of life tending to seemingly utlity-less things like creating flower offerings.

This desire to create sacred space is something I’ve known how to do from a young age and has always been innate to me. No one described it or modeled it to me but I had a deep understanding that objects or spaces carried energy with them and that I could adjust that energy through my attention and intention.

The shadow side of this is being overly obsessed with order and neatness, which was also something I struggled with when I was younger. I was the kid with the spotless room. I had an obsession with brand names of clothes, having perfect hair, and adorning myself to perfection.

Now, I am not concerned with neatness of perfection, but I have a lot of permission and reverence for my impeccable taste (in my humble opionion..LOL) and attention to detail when it comes to the quality of a piece of clothing or furniture.

I have a deeply Taurean energy when it comes to loving beauty and sensuality. I love good smells, soft fabrics, unrivaled comfort and attention to detail.

I love spaces and creating beauty within the physical. I love things that may seem superfluous to more efficiency-only-oriented people.

Quality from this perspective really matters to me. Beauty really matters to me. The energy of a room or a space really matters to me. The way things are organized, displayed, kept, really matters to me. But it’s deeper than simply the optics. It’s about the intention and the alignment with the frequency of beauty. It actually requires a certain kind of attention and sense. It’s about the thoughtfulness that goes into what is set out on a counter top and in what order or how the items in the cuppoard are organized.

I would call this true luxury. Not the new money flashiness, but the true, thoughful, attention to every detail you may need or want.

It’s nothing extra, but everything you could possibly need being there exactly when you need it.

There is a Buddhist word drala that comes to mind. When you look up the definition there are differnt variation of the concept of spirit infused in matter through intention.

The poem below was one that flowed through me today when I was marveling at how much my home feels like a cultivated space. From the decorations, soft pillows, lights, plants, to the way my clothes are hung in the closet, it feels cultivated, cared for, and deeply intentional.

Infused with my spirit and the spirit of my husband and daughters and Spirit Herself. It is not luxurious in the conventional sense, but it is perfectly what we, as a family need.

The space of our home is our sanctuary.

Our home is a cultivated, holy space
It is the place where I create from, the base upon which I jump to lift off and fly. 
It is the place where I sleep and my dreams come to teach me. 

Our home is a cultivated, holy space 
It is the place where my womb became swollen with making life....twice. 
It is the place where I danced and swayed with Birth Herself, and where my second daughter was born into this world and dimension. 

Our home is a cultivated, holy space.
It’s the place where my father in law’s ashes are spread, as well as the ashes of his parents and my mother in law’s parents. 
The land houses the Ancestral Grove full of this grandparent and great great grandparents ashes, grasses, flowers, and fruit trees that feed us from the earth mixedw with ashes below.

Our home is a cultivated, holy space.
My room is where I am sick, heal, and rest
Where my clothes and adornments hang next to those of my beloved.
It is the place where I have cried the hardest and laughed with the most reckless joy. 

Our home is a cultivated, holy space. 
In the kitchen I cook the food that my family eats. 
The nourishment that is broken down and assimilated into the bones and organs of my growing daughters. 
It is where I cook the food for people that I love and sit around the table, drinking tea and sharing what lays heavy on my heart. 

Our home is a cultivated, holy space 
My bathroom is the place where I fill the tub with scalding hot water and salts and healing oils and soak away the concretization of my pain.
My altar is the place I light candles and drop to my knees in prayer and devotion to the ache of longing to know my creator. 

Our home is a cultivated, holy space
It is the place where I stand overlooking the land and the river and the mountains and whisper gratitudes upon gratitudes upon gratitudes for the life I get to live. 
It is the place where I remember, my creator lives within every single cell of my body and every single river rock. 

Our home is a cultivated, holy space 
It is the place, where I embrace the love of my life (lifetimes, really) and lean on him in times when I feel I may not make it through. 
It is the place I make love to him and feel myself dissolving into Him and Her and the cosmos.

Our home is a cultivated, holy space 
It is the place that I rest and warm my bones and gather myself back together after I make my ventures into the lonely bigger world. 
It is a sacred space 
A temple 
An ode to all that I have built my life around and of
And all that holds me together. 

My prayer is that all beings know the feeling of having a place to come home to, a cultivated, holy space to call their own. 

Amen.