Excerpt from The O of Home book
When I began to write this book, the credit crunch was a mere gleam in the eye of a malevolent gnome.
A period of financial crisis, when much that we have held certain has been turned upside down, is a better time than most to challenge ingrained assumptions: not least in the context of “home”.
Maybe it is a good time to wonder about our preoccupation with privacy and security or our view of community as an exclusive group of like-minded individuals; a good time to question assumptions such as the inviolability of borders and nationhood or the superiority of the human race; the notion that some groups of people are somehow different, lesser, “other”. Or that home is synonymous with four walls, investment, status and proof of identity.
We have the opportunity not only to look squarely at how things are, but also to dare to dream of how they might be.
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In looking at the subject of home, we need to explore not just what it means for us as individuals, but also in the context of our communities, of our nations, and of our species. We need to consider not only what our outer houses mean, but those within.
The shape of this book is circular. We begin with our material home: bricks and mortar as shelter, all the accretions that Western society has added – and what it means to live without one. We then move outwards to consider home as relationship: with family, neighbourhood, local community, and what it looks like at different times of our lives. The circle widens to include home as identity, nationality and belonging to our country, as well as migration, both voluntary and enforced. We dare to dream of relationship in the whole of humanity, community without borders. “The sacred home” of us all is the earth, together with other created beings. We consider our place on the planet and our responsibility to other life-forms. We then turn full circle to consider the true meaning of home.
We will never be “at home” in any place, unless we are at home to ourselves, comfortable in our own skins. We need to look at coming home to self, and how we might achieve it; the spiritual dimension for those of faith.
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The circle (O) is itself an ancient symbol, central to many traditions of the world, and represents many of the qualities of “home”. As a closed shape it is all embracing, associated with protection, providing safety for all within. Carl Jung considered its protective, nurturing quality to be part of the mother archetype. With no part greater than another, it also represents democracy and is the preferred shape for an assembly of equals. With no beginning or end, the circle represents eternity. For Native Americans, the shape of the circle represents the circle of life itself. According to Black Elk, a holy man of the Oglala Lakota Sioux:
Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle. The sky is round, and I have heard that the Earth is round like a ball, and so are the stars. The wind in its greatest powers whirls. Birds make their nests in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours. The sun comes forth and goes down again in a circle. The moon does the same, and both are round. Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were. The life of man is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves.
The circle represents oneness and unity, completeness and wholeness, all of the parts of our being; the cosmos, the cycle of seasons, and of our lives on earth. Time, tides, and breath.
In each section we will include the “broken circles”: those who are without home, whether a shelter, a nurturing environment, a country of the heart, or a sense of home in themselves. We will also consider the unconsidered other residents of our planet.
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Home is a central and emotionally laden concept. Sometimes it is a present reality. Sometimes it is a yearning for a childhood experience, real or idealised; sometimes it is a dream of something that has never been. In children’s games it is the place of safety where nothing can touch you; on a computer, it is the personalised place to which you can return. In dream interpretation, a house is often seen as a symbol of the self, and is a key to how we regard ourselves.
Home is where we all want to be.