~~Pagan Summer Camp (Heart Home/wk 3)~~

[wombatclay]

Good morning campers! Rise and shine!

Welcome to week three of Pagan Summer Camp... the home of DO IT NOW!

In week one we started "inside" our lives, building moments of awareness and mindfullness into our daily routines. We sang songs, made crafts, danced dances, canoed canoes, played cards, and had fun looking for quick, easy, ways to DO IT NOW.

In week two we turned inside out and began building moments of gratitude and thanksgiving into our routines. We wrote letters home, stayed up late talking round the campfire, we hugged trees, hugged friends (and at least smiled at people we don't think of as friends), hugged ourselves. We learned that DOING IT NOW in small ways can bring amazing results, inside and out.

In week three we connect the inside and the outside, the inner spirit and the outer spirit, using the image of the Heart's Home.

More soon... till then campers, perhaps draw a morning card, meditate on a morning page, offer thanks for the glory that is coffee, smile at your amazing beautiful mouth in the mirror, and get ready for camp!

[aweynsayl]

welcome to week three of camp! where we save the earth in ittle, bitty, quick, and easy steps we DO NOW. all while building and strengthening our connection to our heart home-- and our physical home as well.


Day One: Heart Home

we've talked about the notion of one's "heart home" on the main thread a few times. the idea that regardless of where we may physically reside, there is a "place" where we feel most truly at "home." this may be an actual physical place, it might not... it could be somewhere we've lived, or visited, or somewhere we've only dreamed about-- it might be an amalgam of places, or purely fantastical. what it isnt is where we physically live now. what it is is somewhere our heart feels longing for.

some quotes from charles de lint on the subject:

"that part of the otherworld that most closely reflects what lies inside your heart."
"everyone carries a piece of the spiritworld in them-- and that fragment is echoed in our hearts."
"the one place we feel truly and completely at home."
"the forest we carry in our hearts."

de lint compares the notion of our heart home to the concept of the First Forest. all forests are an echo of that First Forest, and they all "reach back to it." sort of like platonic ideals or forms.

or, to quote joseph campbell: "the inner world is the world of your requirements and your energies and your structure and your possibilities that meets the outer world. and the outer world is the field of your incarnation. that's where you are. you've got to keep both going." (emphasis mine)

the idea, as we'll use it in this camp, is that your heart home, like that First Forest, is connected-- both to the spirit/other/inner/etc world, and to the physical/outer world-- thru you, your practice, your rituals, your dreams... and so on. because of this connection, we can use our heart homes (as well as our physical homes, and our physical place in our global community) in our practice of healing the earth. in other words, by nurturing BOTH our heart homes and our real ones, we can help to heal the earth both on a physical and spiritual level.

each day of camp, we will focus on one of the 5Rs: reduce, reuse, recycle, restore, renew-- and for that day's category, we will discuss ways to address that area of earth healing-- in terms of our local home, our global home, and our heart home.

to start, if you have not connected with your heart home, DO IT NOW! ;-) add an image to your altar, or a rock, or a candle... if you have a bright notion of your heart home, maybe create an altar just for it... do SOMETHING now to help you, if only for this week, to connect in some way to some notion of a heart home.

welcome to camp!

[femme_rouge]

Thank you Aweyn and Clay
I'm going to set up a heart home altar right now on top of my night stand, so I can sit comfortably in my own cozy bed reflecting on and connecting to my heart home.
Thank you Thank you! I'm really needing this right now

[_ktg_]

!

I'm excited for camp - and this is a great prompt to remind me to build the alter in my bedroom (its been on a to-do list too long!). I have all the pieces, now I can put them together

It will be a great focal point to remind me daily when I wake up of love, my heart and connection from the ethos to the real world.

now ... where to put it...

[Autumn Breeze]

ZOMG I am subbing LOL

I had to shut down firefox about half way through the 2nd week....so I need to finish reading that first but...

[DaughterOfKali]

I'll see if I can find an image online that has the flavor of my heart home.
I don't have enough ink to print it out but I'll use it as my desktop pic! That way, I'll see it multiple times a day.

[wombatclay]

What a great idea! I wonder if I can find a similar desktop image? Right now I have a very steampunky gear motif which I like but which isn't "personal".

[_ktg_]

I love the desktop idea! I have one at work which I !! I wish I could afford a copy of the print, as I would hang it up in my office to keep me in the right mind frame.

Desktop image

[wombatclay]

nice!

[aweynsayl]

i'm forbidden to view it!

reminds me of something i used to do, before i "knew" about HH... i'd make seasonal collages of things that spoke to me, and made them my desktop background. of course, my super nifty new mini lap top doesnt "allow" desktop backgrounds. i actually really miss it.

other ideas for "free" images-- gardening catalogs! most of them, you can submit a request for one on their website. i'm on a rose list now, and that supplies me lots of images.

[Aubergine68]

subbing. I have to go outside with my kids for a bit but will be back

[Valerie.Qc]

[CariOfOz]

Originally Posted by aweynsayl

i'm forbidden to view it!

reminds me of something i used to do, before i "knew" about HH... i'd make seasonal collages of things that spoke to me, and made them my desktop background. of course, my super nifty new mini lap top doesnt "allow" desktop backgrounds. i actually really miss it.

other ideas for "free" images-- gardening catalogs! most of them, you can submit a request for one on their website. i'm on a rose list now, and that supplies me lots of images.

I was forbidden too... we must be on the naughty list

My heart home...would either be the northern california coast near Sebastapol (rugged coast with little secluded beaches that you have to take stairs down to.. spent days there with Daim and my oldest two boys and it was just a magical place!) or a rustic veggie garden with trellises and bean teepees and paths where you don't quite know what you might find when you round the corner of a giant wall of peas... Both are very zen, meditative places for me

VERY sorry I wasn't 'present' much in last weeks camp I'm chalking it up to sheer elation over my kiddo 'coming home' and my feet just not touching the ground! But grounding is what I NEED, so I'll be here daily!

[wombatclay]

Cari- no apologies! The goal of "do it now" is to avoid guilt! There is no guilt! (xul maybe, but no guilt ) Celebrating the arrival of a child and preparing for that is incredible. You are "doing it now" and rocking the spiritual world with your joy.

image- I wonder why you're blocked? It's a painting, symbolic rather than realistic, with a half dozen elements (moon, heart, spider?, etc) and bright primary colors (red, white, black). It's neat but certainly not naughty.

[wombatclay]

REUSE IT NOW!

So happy campers, what does "reuse" mean to you? I admit it's a difficult word for me... growing up we didn't have a lot and instead of embracing simplicity the "family vibe" was more about shame/deprivation. So while I love re-purposing, re-imagining, transforming, re-inventing... calling it "re-use" just makes me feel impoverished. How about you? Does the word change your feelings about the act? Does it limit your vision of what the act can be? Right here and right now choose a word that nurtures your creativity and highlights the creative fires of transformation! Because that's what today is about. Transformation through creativity, opening the box one more time to let Hope enter the world.

The earth the air the fire the water
returns returns returns returns

A perfect campfire chant! Or one of my favorites,

When we are gone, they will remain --
The wind and rock, the fire and rain.
They will remain when we return --
The wind will blow, and the fire will burn.

(scroll down to Second Chants, select When We Are Gone, to hear a sample, it's on the Reclaiming website which is totally fine but my browser always gives me a "danger" note... for some reason Reclaiming is on the "poo list" )

Or maybe this song will speak more to you? I'm not a big Jewel fan, but this song always brings me to tears (and out the other side to hope and determination).

While you hum or sing or walk mindfully through your day... how can you transform and re-create the world around you? The cup of water that sat on your bedtable might be just what the plant in the window needs... your cat's old water might be offered to the tree outside the door... that one last icecube that jumps out of the dispenser and lands on the floor thirty seconds after you move your cup away might be calling you to hold the glaciers in mindfull awareness (and then do your part to slow global warming by adjusting your fridge settings, cleaning the door seal, and dusting the vents).

And so on... the earth the air the fire the water returns returns returns returns. But HOW does it return? How do you transform the world and see it anew? Right here, right now, where you are today?

[singin_angel]

Things have been insane around here. I keep clicking on the camp threads and then everything around here goes nuts. Let's try this again (and maybe I can do weeks 1 and 2 too sometime).

Anyways, re-use to me also brings up the same feelings as Clay but I am trying to keep things simple around here. One thing I saw on tv when I was flipping through was on the Rachel Ray show. She asked viewers to send in ideas of how to re-use things they already had. One woman re-used an empty kleenex box to keep the plastic bags that show up. I thought it was a cute idea. I re-use gift bags a lot as well as baskets or other items.

When we got married, we bought a multi-photo frame for our seating chart and now it i being used as a beautiful focal point in our bedroom. We did that with many items that we bought and had some thought to use re-use it in a new way after we were done.

Can't wait to hear some more ideas. I won't get home for many hours from now (doing postpartum support) but looking forward to reading more.

[_ktg_]

Originally Posted by wombatclay

Cari- no apologies! The goal of "do it now" is to avoid guilt! There is no guilt! (xul maybe, but no guilt ) Celebrating the arrival of a child and preparing for that is incredible. You are "doing it now" and rocking the spiritual world with your joy.

image- I wonder why you're blocked? It's a painting, symbolic rather than realistic, with a half dozen elements (moon, heart, spider?, etc) and bright primary colors (red, white, black). It's neat but certainly not naughty.

Thanks Clay for describing the picture... I wonder why people are being blocked The title of it is "The Dancer" - It reminds me to be playful and remember where my heart is.

[aweynsayl]

i'm sure cari and i are just being punished... for watching legolas videos on youtube one too many times, no doubt.


i agree, "re-purpose" or even "re-designate" has a slightly more... creative energy than a plain "re-use"... i, too, have some old baggage with the term. our family has tended towards the DONT throw anything away because you never know what you might need it for..... it used to drive me bonkers, but i started challenging myself to USE them.

for me, the key to feeling *good* about it, rather than feeling that i was doing it because i had to to save money was to feel creative by doing it. i got myself to a place where i feel better putting some flowers from the garden into a jelly jar than into a purchased vase. it took me a while to get there, though.

another thing that helped was that dh and i kept breaking our wine glasses. rather than keep buying new ones, i started using jelly jars, and because i realized i can recycle broken jelly jars, but not broken wine glasses, it made me feel better for being so ... klutzy... and breaking wine glasses all the time... (this works for juice glasses, vases, etc etc... anything i can put in a jelly jar, i will. )

also, i'm finding that making the most of what i already have rather than buying cheap makes me feel more abundant. rather than buy a "cheap" made in china picture frame for over my new fireplace, i'm going to refinish an old one my mom had over hers, and is now in the storage room... i would never have done that 5 years ago. but now, i know it will feel a lot nicer than a cheaply made "modern" one. (whereas before, in reaction to the childhood inability to buy new, i would have insisted on having new... even if it was cheap.) i try to do this with things like rocks for vase fillers, and such as well... goodness knows there are enough "found rocks" around our house, lol. yes, the purty polished ones are nice, but the found ones have more meaning. (they also work great in the garden as mulch!)

my least favorite childhood chore was washing & drying plastic bags to re-use them. so, i try to avoid that if i can...
*i save the zip-top bags i buy my bulk herbs in--i move them to my nice jars, but i keep the bags in a jar in the pantry, and when i need more of that spice, i take the same empty bag back (just make sure the codes havent changed, or you might pay the wrong price, lol) -- i do the same with the bags for bulk incense.
*i use empty yogurt containers for taking snacks out (they crumble less in them than in baggies)....
*we have some tupperware-ish containers from family dinner leftovers brought home-- i'm planning to use them for buying bulk cheese and deli meats, instead of those plastic bags (i havent done this yet, but i'll do it the next time we need some! i will!)

[aweynsayl]

Heart Home Re-Use: how would you re-use things in your heart home?

does re-use mean something different in your heart home than it does in your real, daily, too busy, too stressful, too-filled-with-emotional-baggage life?

maybe you have wonderful organic ways of doing things in your heart home that you can begin to apply to your real life... try meditating on how you live your daily chores in your heart home, and see if you find some inspiration.

[ian'smommaya]

yay! week three!