We will undoubtedly at some point find ourselves in our life not relating to the space we occupy. Maybe not at the moment we move into a space, but sometime down the line we lose relationship with where we live. We take for granted environments we fall in love with, much like the human/animal loved ones we purport to cherish. We may set up our sacred spaces with that love and honoring vibration present, but then we stop paying attention. We stop paying attention to ourselves, our changes and this manifests in our environments.We internally become static. Our external space in turn also becomes static.
I discuss this at length in the post
Place, Space, Materiality and Health. I hope in this post to expand on that previous post and discuss the relevant relationship of space and objects to myself and the reflection of my state to my space and what I surround myself with and how that relates to my well being.
As was mentioned in previous posts, everything is energy. What happens when my sense of relationship with myself becomes thin or tenuous, my sense of relationship to that which is outside of me becomes same. As I renew myself regularly with hygiene practices, nutritious meals, clean water, movement and spirit renewal in regular prayer/meditation or play time, my external space needs to be considered similarly. Space carries energy; objects carry energy. This energy not only reflects on me but influences me. We are on a continuous give and receive energy loop in relation to our insides and outsides. When we break an aspect of this circulation by allowing stasis to move in, the rest of the cycle's rhythm and flow is arrested. Our "castles" and "kingdoms" no longer are a place of haven and refuge, but a place that leaches on our energy and sense of peace.
Looking at space in relation to our well being is really interesting. It reliably brings up my edges. My edges around my needs and wants, around the things I have and don't have, my longings and my discomforts. Everything I grapple with inside somehow manifests on the outside. If it is one's tendency to become overwhelmed, looking at one's surrounds will probably elicit the same response in either an external emotional reaction or a shut down response. A decade ago an exercise in maintaining an empty space helped me to look and consider space in an entirely different perspective.
I found myself with an almost empty room in my home and this was exciting. I always wanted my own space a room of my own. I had shared space with others for forever. In my dreams, this room of my own would be empty. When I found myself with this opportunity, I made a pact that I would maintain the emptiness no matter what. It took me six months of struggling to stay close to this wish to actualize it. Not only did I have to fend off infidel household members who wanted to fill the space, I surprisingly found I was guilty of the same inclinations. There was no good reason not to fill it and I couldn't explain away to others or myself this pact. But I gave my admittedly feeble reasons anyway ("just because"). And with some adamant vigilance the empty room stayed empty. I meditated there. I visited it often and wondered at the blank walls and open corners. I rolled around on the floor frequently and layed in the sun spot which arrived between 3 and 4pm on winter days through the little attic window . And with the pleasure came the pain. Those six months were very uncomfortable a lot of the time; empty space, like a blank canvas is intimidating. Initially, there is a lot of pressure to "do" something with it, to make it something, to identify the space. It was uncomfortable for me to just let it be what it was, empty. I wanted to at least have a picture or a stool or little table there-- anything. Letting it be empty was a direct reflection of what it was for me to allow an empty room to exist in myself, to allow space in myself to breathe. It was a wonderful, revealing six months including more than a few moments of agonizing ambivalence. And with less and less struggle it stayed empty. And now after that little-big exercise, creating and maintaining empty space for myself has been easier.
I mention this story because it illustrates how the animate and inanimate energetically move through periods together, influencing and creating relationship. My usual self discounts this. It doesn't recognize the relationship, the vitality and the drain that can be present in the relationship, the give and the take the influence on a self, on an intimate atmosphere.
Looking at personal space and making changes isn't something that should be quick or immediate. Respect for the space is required and that means spending some time there without doing anything but sensitizing oneself to the qualities of the room. How does the light move through, how do the walls, floor and ceiling respond to that? What are the dynamic qualities in the room? Where is it's magnetism, the place that draws my attention over and over again? Like everything else in my life (hopefully) I need to make a relationship with it. This means I don't bulldoze ahead and "do" stuff to the room. I consider the room as I consider myself. I take time with it and in it.
What do I need from the room? Is it a place I need a sense of repose and relaxation or one of stimulation? Is it a community space, where I hope to gather others? Is it a private place for my own beauty to show, a place for me to self-appreciate? And what does the room need from me? A warmth because it faces north? Help in finding its spaciousness due to its low ceilings? A grounding due to its odd dimensions or many corners? The function of a room can change or can (or need to) harness several different functions. How do I consider this in the quiet of my examination of the room? Everything, including space has a certain energetic capacity. How can I think about, be with the capacity of this room and help it keep its integrity (keeping my own in the process)?
When I respect myself and a space, the energies of both join and I am informed in a clear way as to how to proceed. The creative that lives in us both is the informant to the color and objects necessary to create the whole that is asking to be met. This is an exciting and exquisitely profound experience of being matched and bringing what can be a healing to both self and space. Taste and aesthetic have nothing to do with it. It's about what is right for the partnership at the time.
When I am close to myself and the room in all these considerations, there is no right or wrong, there is just what is and what must be. When I am not close to myself, I behave mechanically, I lose my thoughtfulness, my consideration of myself and the room. My intimate, personal space of repose becomes cluttered with things I "love" but which energetically takes up a lot of soul/psych space. This largely occupied space becomes about these things not about me and the rooms purpose. This intimate breathing, dreaming space is considerably diminished because of these other energetic occupants. We have to make choices for the room (table or altar) and myself on behalf of the relationship. It's an interesting exercise to test for yourself how much (psychic/soul/physical) capacity the space has to accommodate objects before it begins to not feel like the relationship which is required now between you and the space.
Cultivating sacred space requires us to practice this type of cultivation within ourselves first. Allowing breathing spaces within, opens those private, intimate spaces inside ourselves creating a respect for the small, quiet and unexpected. That sensitivity creates a relationship that then can be recognized outside oneself. Outer sacred space is but a reflection of one's inner sacred space.
I think what keeps calling me back to this amazing, generous form is the wish to experience this fuller listening intelligence and the opportunity to experience what is my ordinary self at the same time. My daily experiences of myself and the world around me are so fractured; this spacious intelligence in conjunction with the routine householder, unavailable. Entering this church or garden gate and the reinforcement of spending more time there, gives me the taste of living a bigger life, a more intelligent life. One that is not devoid of one quality or another, but inclusive. It's not just a type of listening done with one sense-- a more spacious and energetic capacity unveils itself. The idea of an effort that doesn't exist in "trying" makes itself known. Life becomes apparently bigger than that. Anticipation and expectation become uninteresting and pointless. The unexpected vibrates with another type of knowing; it's fresh, clean, mysterious and enlivening.
