A pod is the perfect home for a pea—cozy and tailor-made to exactly the right size and shape. Until the time for that perfect home passes, and the pod splits, allowing the pea to fall out and grow into a plant on its own.
When have you given up a comfortable place of belonging in order to become something more?
“Nature is not a place to visit. It is home.”
―Gary Snyder
Where do you feel the most at home in nature?
There is a special kind of welcome you feel when you come into a room where the table is set, all ready for the beloved, anticipated guests. But there is a different kind of welcome implicit in an empty table, where anyone, it seems, might sit down without knowing who they might encounter, or what might be served.
How do you make a place at the table to welcome the stranger or the unknown?
Oranges only ripen on the tree—it doesn’t work to pick an orange that isn’t ready and have it ripen on your windowsill. Sometimes we need to take the time to be just where we are—to hang on our own particular tree—and wait for the point when we are fully prepared to share our gifts.
What are you patiently allowing to come to fruition?
Let’s get real. Your home might be your place of comfort, your nest, your creative expression or your retreat, but it is not your castle. And really, would you want to live so set apart from the rest of humanity?
What sort of dwelling serves as the best metaphor for how you see your home in the world?
