Coming home

I look at my swollen hand, still throbbing from being smashed between moving trailer and garage. It looks a bit ominous and I wonder if I'll be centered enough to perform my clearing ceremony. Poison ivy, stubbed toe, smashed hand, the physical damage grows and I know that I'm far from harmony. I worry that it means I'm going the wrong direction but then think of all the small synchronicities in finding and furnishing the apartment, all the friends that have suddenly reappeared, and I know I am on the right path, strange though it may be.

I turn the knob on the stove and love the flame. Too long I've tried to cook with electric burners and I look forward to making my own food again. I hold the sage wand in the flame, admire the blue and red binding, colors I normally have little connection with. It's good symbolism for a new beginning, an opening of doors to new things.

Rich smoke curls up, swirls towards the cabinet and then dips and forms a circle. The apartment is breezy and the smoke takes full advantage of the live air. I've fallen into a profound meditative state, and my hands move of their own volition - right hand tracing the lines of the cabinets and walls, left hand holding a brass bowl inlaid with gold and red glaze, a gift from my grandma long ago.

I hold the thought of my grandma, remember how welcome everyone always felt in her presence. I try to bring that feeling to my ceremony and will the smoke throughout the room. I slowly spiral along the walls, getting to know the space and letting the space become comfortable with me.

I arrive back at the stove and with a final prayer I lay the wand in a vase, companion to the bowl I set beside it.

I pick up a sweet grass braid and push my desire for friends new and old to feel at home in my new dwelling, then with a flourish I tack it to the outside of my door.

This place, this airy space floating in the treetops, feels good. It isn't my home, but it is a place I can grow and open myself to new possibilities. And maybe, just maybe, the home I always have longed for will come to me.