Continuing on the subject of family, green and havens, places of refuge…
One of the things I remember that was most grounding when I was growing up were quiet days with my family. To come home was a relief from the strife around me outside. Battles happened inside too, like in any other place where people are together, but they were not the dominant dynamic. Mostly people would find some place of peace in the house. Together or apart. We all had our things to do, my mother and her piano, my father and his painting or reading, my brother and I would play together but we’d also find things to do in our own rooms. I spent a lot of time drawing and reading, writing in my journal (after a certain age). My brother had his violin and keeping up with sports. The thing that was really nice is that we could be around one another and busy with our own interests, there was a sense of support in finding your own way to meditate, in a sense, and no forced effort to interact just because we happened to live under the same roof. We left one another in peace, and were happy in that together/apartness.
I think that dynamic is finally coming to be within my own little family. God knows I’ve needed it, fighting battles everywhere and exhausting myself trying to be more than one person at the same time to many people has been so draining. This is exactly what I need to get better, to find some sort of oasis in the confusion and heaviness and all the rest that is the world outside. And exactly what I need to pass down to my own children, who will have to search for the same thing to settle down their own spirits, once they are on their own.
Odilonvert 