Tag: home

Signs

It has been my experience that the universe often sends us signs to light our way or guide us on our life journeys. If one unexpectedly appears, I pay attention, often with shivers of synchronicity and a bit of awe. When Anne and I were searching for a new place to live, we went to countless open houses throughout areas north, west, and south of Boston. It was interesting but also frustrating because we didn’t see anything that was exactly right—and we lost the bid on one we really liked. As the end of our apartment lease drew closer (and we knew our rent was going up significantly), the pressure we felt increased.

We continued to look, and then there was one new open house at a condo community we had previously looked at but thought was a bit far away. Since this new condo seemed perfect for us, we decided to visit again. The night before the open house, just as I was going to sleep, I heard an eastern screech owl calling outside the window. I had not heard one for several years, and never near that particular location. I listened to its haunting call for several minutes before it stopped. Hearing it in the deep silent darkness felt almost sacred. The next day, we drove to the open house, and as we walked through the rooms, my eye was caught by a small painting on the wall: it was an eastern screech owl. Immediately, I had a profound inner sense that we were meant to live there. And, indeed, that is exactly what happened. Our bid was accepted, and we moved in several months ago.

Anne and I believed the owl was a sign for us, a signal pointing the way. That has helped us as we acclimated to a completely new town and very different surroundings. It has been difficult at times to let go of the familiar and jump into the unknown, even if it seems right. Interestingly, it’s the birds and the trees that continue to reassure us that we have made the right choice. The woods around the condo community are filled with birds, which in turn fill my heart with joy because I had been concerned that there wouldn’t be birds nearby when we moved. Especially robins, one of my most beloved birds.

I need not have worried. In fact, robins became the symbolic welcoming committee in the months after our move. Entire flocks of them flew overhead and landed in the nearby trees and on the ground, even in January. They ate juniper berries from the evergreens and foraged around through the leaves for insects. On any given day, I would encounter a dozen or more, which of course made me feel happy and also more “at home.”

As winter turned gradually to spring, house finches and song sparrows began their spring songs. The loud cheery call of the bright red male cardinal filled the air each morning from the very top of trees I passed on my walks. Deep in the woods I heard titmice, blue jays, goldfinches, and canyon wrens calling. Red-winged blackbirds arrived, heralding the beginning of spring migration, and their musical trills added to the orchestral mix. The presence of this large wooded area was a magnet for so many kinds of birds, and as the weeks passed, more and more spring migrants arrived (including Baltimore orioles!).

All of this was immensely reassuring to me, and once again I felt, as I had with the eastern screech owl, that the birds were giving us repeated, unmistakable “signs” that this was truly our home, as it was theirs. When a robin flies to a small tree next to where I’m standing and looks me in the eye with that friendly, intelligent robin gaze, I trust the perfect unfolding of my life here among the birds.

Lost and Found

This morning I am looking out my window at green and gold woods, blue skies, and white clouds. Blue jays fly from oak tree to oak tree, gathering acorns for the winter; a red-tailed hawk circles overhead. The sound of crickets fills the air, day and night. I live now on the opposite side of Boston from where I lived two months ago. A move from northwest to southeast of the city, one we had pondered for a while, not sure exactly where but knowing it was time, because of rising rents.

So now the trees and sky I viewed in the summer are completely different, leaves changing color in the autumn, sun setting sooner. Our lives change in just these ways. One day we call one place home; the next it is a memory, and we live elsewhere. A memory, though, that tugs at my heart in this moment, separated from an area that was familiar for so many years (40+). Within that frame, I sometimes feel “lost.”

We don’t detach so easily from a place felt at our core as home. We carry the ache within us, even as we step decidedly on a new path. I greatly loved the town I lived in, my favorite “home” from all the years of living coast to coast in various cities and towns. I was one with Nature there in a way I hadn’t been since my childhood in the Illinois countryside. I gardened daily (hands in the earth, flowers all around) and walked in beautiful sanctuaries like Mt. Auburn Cemetery, where the seasons, animals, and birds dance through the year with a vividness and light beyond description.

So what do you do if you feel lost? Do you try to be found, or try to find—yourself? Words and language can sometimes trick us into believing there is something missing in our lives. Perhaps it’s not about losing and finding but just about being. Fully present, fully alive. If I think I am lost, I look for what is missing, when actually everything is always present all the time! Home is in my heart if I recognize it there.

So here I am, gazing out at a forested landscape. The sky and clouds are stunning. My heart may not feel completely one with what my eyes see—yet. It takes time to find and feel connection, with people and with places. So I wait patiently, with a mix of feelings, knowing that all it takes is a single moment of shining brilliance to fall in love with what you are seeing and experiencing.

These are the moments we live for. And they always come at the most unexpected times. You can’t orchestrate them or wish them into being. You can only repeatedly remind yourself to remain open and that no matter what you are doing or not doing, or where you are, your soul is at home and experiences the miracle of living spirit everywhere. Even now, the blue jays are calling, their silhouettes bright among the trees….

Heart Memory

Photograph © 2021 Peggy Kornegger
I once read about an injured hawk that was rescued and taken to a raptor rehabilitation center. The hawk, after recovering from its injuries, was driven back to the location where it had been found, many miles away. At a certain point in the trip, the hawk suddenly became more alert. It lifted its head and looked around sharply; it moved its wings with anticipation. It sensed in the deepest part of its being that its home was near. Such behavior can’t be logically explained by science because it has to do with the things we know without physical evidence to prove it. Awareness beyond the five senses. Author Rupert Sheldrake called it “morphic resonance” in explaining how a dog would know its human companion, a hundred miles away, had started to return home. We living beings, animal or human, feel presence and remember home from great distances. Our heart has an intelligence even deeper and wider than the brain’s.

I have experienced this time and again in my life. It is a powerful connection to the world around me. I can literally feel my awareness extend beyond time and space to people and events at great distances or in the past. Like the hawk, I have recognized “home” in my cells and in my heart. Most recently, on the return flight moving back to Boston from Florida, I visually tracked the plane’s movement up the coast, passing through state after state. I could feel my heart begin to beat faster as we neared New England. When the edge of Massachusetts appeared on the flight map, I looked out the window at the Earth below. I felt the familiarity deep within me. Then, as the plane touched down, tears filled my eyes. Anne, who had lived in the Boston area all her life, was sniffling beside me. We squeezed each other’s hands as the flight attendant’s voice came over the PA: “Welcome Home.” Yes.

A couple of weeks after arriving and settling in to our new apartment, Anne and I drove to the neighborhood where we had lived before moving to Florida. As we passed through the familiar streets and turned down ours, once again I cried. Eleven years of memories flashed through my mind: summer gardens, autumn leaves, winter blizzards, spring awakenings, sunrises and sunsets, full moons, screech owls calling at dusk, mockingbirds singing at dawn, goldfinches feeding, squirrels chasing each other, neighbors bringing banana bread and kindness. It all was alive within me. My heart remembered every moment.

Immediately I thought of the hawk and connected to its experience from within my own. We creatures of Earth are here but a short time; yet each second is imprinted on our consciousness and carried within us. Our souls know the brevity of our stay, which gives us an intensity of experience that continues throughout our lives. The homes we have here are but a reflection of the greater Home that we come from and to which we return beyond lifetimes. Perhaps in remembering our Earth homes with such emotion we are also remembering our heavenly Home. It is a mystery, this life. Still, in moments of deep connection to the present and past as one, we, hawk or human, experience the far-reaching power of the heart’s memory. And of a greater Intelligence that holds us all in its Universal Heart.