Tag Archives: home base

Where’s Home?

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, impediments, Inner Struggles, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving, Travel

May 17, 2023- As I got off the train this morning, sans jacket, I felt a slight chill in the air and moved briskly towards the area where the Sportage was parked. I noted that a slightly-built young woman, who had initially regarded me with suspicion, while we were on the train, was also without a jacket and was rather flustered-perhaps having met the same fate. I also noted that several well-built men were without coats. Maybe there was a run on outerwear, back at Union Station.

It is customary to welcome people back, when they have been away from a situation-whether to a place of work or to a community. I appreciate the greeting, but I must admit that a limited view of home has never resonated with me. Home has been any number of places, over the years: Saugus is still the place where I lived the longest, though Prescott is catching up, in that regard. Bangor never really felt that comfortable. Amherst, Northampton and South Deerfield were fine places to live, while I was in school-as was Flagstaff. Tuba City and Jeddito helped me expand my awareness of true First Nations life. Jeju did the same, for my understanding of East Asian thought and cultural norms. Salome, once I got an appreciation of rural desert dwellers, might have been a fine place to settle, but for local politics. Phoenix was too close to the rawness of the situation we were in, as a couple and as a family dealing with deadly disease. It was also far too hot, for too many months in the year.

I’ve addressed the issue of where I feel most at home, when on the road, several times before and will not belabor that matter again, here. Basically, though, home is ever a state of mind. Maybe that was why I felt as comfortable whilst on the buses and trains, yesterday, as I do right now in “my own” living room.

It’s nice to be at Home Base, though, and I hope the young lady at the train station found her way back to where she feels at home, in fairly short order.

Gratitude, After Facing the Strange

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Posted by on in children, Community, Family, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal goals, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

May 28, 2022- The strange part came early this morning, before I awoke, In the dream, I was carrying my maternal grandmother around and showing her her old house, her daughters, including my mother, and one of her daughters-in-law. The last scene was of one of my paternal uncles, and two of his sons, arriving at the house, where another of my paternal uncles was fixing a meal for everyone.

Grandma died in 1960, but my memories of her have always been strong. All my maternal aunts, save one, have also passed on. All of my paternal uncles, save two, are gone, as are the two cousins in the scenario. All the uncles and aunts in the dream are among the departed. Mom is very much alive. I have a great deal more to do, over the next several years, and I don’t want to stick her with burying another child, so I am not putting a whole lot into the dream, other than maybe I need to keep their memories alive.

On this run-up to Memorial Day, I am focused on my gratitude. These include good health, good friends, a healthy and well-balanced family, a clear vision of things, and knowing that there are places across this continent and in at least two others, where I will ever be welcome. Prescott is a salubrious Home Base; I have a good, solid place to live and a well-built vehicle to get me places-especially after I tend to its needs, at the end of next week. I am grateful for the team that handles my finances. I am eternally grateful to the Team that guides my soul. My blessings include the children, animals and vegetation that enrich this life, the rocks and water that colour it and the music that ever flows, when my ears are open to its melodies.

Gratitude is king!

My Ley Lines

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Posted by on in Family, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

January 15, 2022- To further elaborate on the topic discussed yesterday, it is worth considering the concept of ley lines. These are energy-based, invisible lines considered to be drawn between major landmarks and historic buildings. Places tapped as having vortices, like Sedona and Carnac, are often the focus of studies done on ley lines.

I rather think that the spiritual nature of humans allows the establishment of ley lines, energy connections between an individual and various places, which s(he) has either visited or to which there are distinct energy connections. My own such lines are of three sources: Ancestral and familial; faith-based and social (both real time and media-based).

The lines are between Home Base (Prescott, AZ), as this is where I am presently rooted and a number of locations related to the above-mentioned sources. In terms of ancestral and familial places I have visited, or in which I’ve lived, the lines connect to Rouen, Normandy (France); Montreal; Old Town, Maine; Saugus and Lynn, Massachusetts (running through Ashland ); Plattsburgh, NY; Philadelphia and its southeastern suburbs; Newnan, GA; Spring Hill, Florida; St. Louis; and the northwestern suburbs of Dallas.

Faith-based lines link with Wilmette, Illinois; The Navajo Nation (Dinetah); Hopi; Flagstaff; Phoenix; Macy, Nebraska; Wanblee, South Dakota; Standoff, Alberta (Canada); San Francisco; Salt Lake City; Carson City; Glenwood Springs, Colorado; Bath, Guyana; Jeju and Seoul, Korea; Tsaotun, Taiwan; London and Canterbury, England; Frankfurt-am-Main, Hesse (Germany); Haifa and Akko’, Israel.

There are a great many lines running to locations of a friend-based nature, of which a few may be mentioned here: San Diego; Santa Fe; Amarillo and Austin; Enid, Oklahoma; Memphis and Crossville, Tennessee; Mishawaka, Indiana; Kansas City; Hilton Head and Aiken, South Carolina; Harrisonburg and Virginia Beach, VA; Baton Rouge; Portland, Oregon; Tacoma, Washington; southeast Alaska; Toronto; Vannes, Bretagne and Luxembourg-Ville.

Perhaps the most crucial thing to remember about such ley lines is that, as the number of places to which the lines connect increase, the strength of their energy also grows. This is so, because spiritual energy is infinite. I look forward to such increases.

Think of Me As You Will

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Posted by on in collaborating, Inner Struggles, Personal goals, Personal Values, Poetry, Social, Striving

November 3, 2021-

Think of me as you will. I will ever rise from my bed, no later than 7 a.m. The day will begin in earnest, with devotions and a health check.

Either work, or service of some kind, will follow. My presence is welcome in many places; in others, not so much. There are friends in whose homes I am welcome with open arms. Others, with whom I must negotiate a visit, are more cautious. They are no less loved.

Home Base is a paradise to me, albeit one whose surrounds are cluttered with the accoutrements of my workaholic neighbours. It is no less loved, for all the noise and clamour.

Think of me as you will. If this life plan keeps me in one place, that is its design. Should the spirit guides say “Go forth”, that is also its purpose.

My life is not yours, and vice versa. Should our paths be in tandem, you are always welcome at my side. If they become entangled, let us determine what is best, for both of us.

Dad told me, long ago, “What other people think of you is not your business. If their paths cross yours, each of you has the right to do what is best for yourself.”

Think of me as you will. Long may you live, love and prosper.

Seventeen Analogies

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Posted by on in collaborating, Inspiration, Personal Values, Spiritual, Striving

May 1, 2019-

Baha’u’llah ends his advice to the reader of the Tablet under discussion by listing seventeen analogies, which I repeat below.

“Be a home for the stranger, a balm to the suffering, a tower of strength for the fugitive. Be eyes to the blind, and a guiding light unto the feet of the erring. Be an ornament to the countenance of truth, a crown to the brow of fidelity, a pillar of the temple of righteousness, a breath of life to the body of mankind, an ensign of the hosts of justice, a luminary above the horizon of virtue, a dew to the soil of the human heart, an ark on the ocean of knowledge, a sun in the heaven of bounty, a gem on the diadem of wisdom, a shining light in the firmament of thy generation, a fruit upon the tree of humility.”

In physical terms, my current Home Base is a tiny spot, though big enough to offer 3-4 other people space to sleep.  Yet, I like it when people feel at home in my presence.  I work to relieve suffering, in both physical and social terms.  It is always best when  errant people can stop running, on their own.  I have walked with them, and tried to guide, using whatever time is needed.  Being a pillar of the temple of righteousness, the name of my blogsite aside, is more problematic.  We have all had feet of clay at times. I will own mine, and certainly have either been sent, or have sought after, people who will take me to task for them.  Truth, even by, or especially by, admission, is part of what Baha’u’llah calls “spotless purity”- a goal He has set for each of us to pursue, in the course of our spiritual development.  Inculcating wisdom, the valuing of knowledge, the maintenance of humility in a boastful society, each serve to invigorate not only one’s spirit, but the collective spirit of one’s generation.

So, as Ridvan draws to an end, with tomorrow’s commemoration of the Beloved’s departure from that sanctified garden, and His long overland journey to what is now Istanbul, I take stock of all the ways in which advancement, in these virtues He offered us, as divine gifts, is being manifested and the still further way that I have to go, in that regard.

I have learned, since last Ridvan, that even when life does not roll out in a tight plan, it has the most exquisite of offerings to place at one’s feet.  I sense it will be thus, in the next twelve months.

Sixty-Six for Sixty Six, Part XXVII: The Only True Network

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Posted by on in Family, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

April 26, 2017, Prescott-

I’ve had a good amount of time to think about the people and things that have come my way, over the past six years, especially the past month or so.  I came upon what turns out to be an intensely spiritual little community of a few dozen good friends, anchored by two remarkable couples, who I met, in their entirety, last night, while online.  The women, one in particular, showed a high level of concern for my well-being, last month, when I stopped by their coffee shop, after a long hike.  I was fine, but that level of love resonated, deep in my heart.  Maybe I’ve been on the go, and semi-independent, a bit too long, and the message is to savour connections, more than I have up to now.

There is, from my having met the rocks, the diamonds, of two large and loving families, a deeper lesson.  My travels, here and there, will continue, as will my being active in the community that serves as my home base.  There is, though, thanks to Mrs. Willa Ficarra and Mrs. Kathy Barga, a reminder that there is no real heart connection, without a sense of family.  In all my travels, with three notable single-adult friends as exceptions, it has been the families who have befriended me, who have provided the most consistent support, admonition and encouragement.

As this academic year enters its final month, I look ahead to two months of connection, and re-connection, with friends, new and old, and with my own family, in strengthening the network that will help each of us, in whatever lies ahead.