Subject: Coming Home

How do we come home? 



As people prepare for a summer expected to be full of travel, I wrote this article to support our thinking of the process of return.  

 


To our collective detriment, we live in a society that spends far more time and energy on the process of embarking on a journey… vacation, conferences, retreats, adventures of many forms... but very little on the process of returning.  



Whether you are organizing conferences and retreats or participating in them, I hope you are able to give the process of returning significant engagement.



While writing the article, I mulled over some of the bigger-picture questions around the cycles of going forth and coming back. As I keep going deeper into the material I'm teaching in our ReMembering course, I was also considering the relationship between our society's near obsession with "going out" to find/discover (a new business, adventure, or even to find yourself) and the Doctrine of Discovery.



"Discovery" has become a critical part of how people come to understand themselves, frame their business pursuits, and make a living. Many associates this with the hero’s journey- you have to go forth on a journey to enter (adulthood, self-realization, etc). Yet the impact of one's "discoveries" remains, in so very many ways, less considered.  Nor is the process of return.



I'm not sure how much the sentiments behind the Age of Discovery are influenced by the Hero's Journey, or if we have come to significantly gravitate towards the mythological sentiments of the Hero's Journey precisely because we are so conditioned by a society whose DNA steeped in the importance of discovery.... with very little attention on impact or on the multiple perspectives.  I ended up not putting this into the article, but thought some of you might find the connections interesting!


Read the full article

Meanwhile, we are in the midst of our own returnings. We happily back at home after traveling in the uk. We are doing some things to help us return well - resting, long walks, puttering, cleaning, and other housework that is, I find, so helpful to grounding, especially after time in metal tubes hurtling through space.   It's mostly good, though, as so often occurs, there are some Difficult Things that need tending to - not new, precisely, but which are clearly saying they are not going to be ignored for much longer.



We will have a sharing time - just an open conversation - about some of the ideas and questions that we were discussing with friends, colleagues, students, and other folks in the UK.  Big questions included, what does it mean to heal the colonizer's soul in the context of England; what does it mean to tell different origin stories of Europe; the relationship between dragons and colonization; belonging and identity; contemporary English relations to (somewhat imaginary) ancient Rome;  what does it mean to really be related to everyone (and have the data to prove it); and inquiries into the purpose, past, and future of retreat spaces and different forms of un/learning communities; the eco-spiritual, reaching-back and anticipating forward,  dimensions that I saw glimmering, just about everywhere.



Here's the link if you want to join us. :-)  



And - I think I emailed most of you - but just to say that I did indeed say prayers for everyone's ancestors who asked me to. :-)  Thank you for trusting me with their names. It was an honor to carry them.



Many blessings to your comings and your goings,

Sara Jolena

Rev. Sara Jolena Wolcott, MDiv

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Sequoia Samanvaya, 268 Middle Rd, 12534, Hudson, United States of America

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