Our Homes Are Alive With Intelligence

table-and-brick Our Homes are Alive with Intelligence

“When people go within and connect with themselves, they realize they are connected to the universe and they are connected to all living things.” – Armand Dimele

As summer winds down and fall makes itself known with longer nights and cooler temperatures, kids are back to school, and gardens are finishing their growing cycle, life’s seasonal rhythms provide an opportunity to slow down and come to a still point to reboot ourselves.
During these seasonal shifts, I notice that when I don’t give myself s p a c e for this still point-  to completely erase the canvas of my busy doingness, and allow the softness of the wise being inside to nourish me, things can get in a funky wad fast. For me that’s when illness comes in or snags show up in my daily flow. I get irritated quicker or don’t stop to see what it is wanting to change in me. By witnessing nature’s intelligence as it goes thru change, I am reminded to look at what wants to change in me. This speaks to a major life theme for me- that of choosing carefully what intelligences I want to inform me in creating nurturing home environments.

My early attempts at designing my home space to support my family and me fell woefully short of nurturing us. These homes reflected the intelligence of the quick, fast culture I was surrounded by. So I had homes where I “dressed up” to the outside world with plenty of shiny things. Homes where the space was tuned into the values of the modern consumer, but little space in these homes to tap into deeper intelligence. It was no wonder that in these spaces we had dissonance, stress, and poor health clogging the intelligence that wanted to come thru.

Thanks to Allison Post & Stephen Cavaliere for their depiction of a stressed body from “Unwinding the Belly.”

unhealthy-woman-sketch Our Homes are Alive with Intelligence
bad-food Our Homes are Alive with Intelligence

There were dismal moments of being gripped in what culture was presenting to me as the right intelligence. One such moment was finding myself clueless on nutrition while pregnant for the first time with a demanding career. My home had no solid nutritional system to support my family. There was no internet to search an answer or wise mentor in the doctor’s office. I remember being in shock when my ob/gyn told me I had gestational diabetes.
When you looked at the food pyramid I followed- carbs were at the bottom, and I often picked the boxed and processed ones, many of them loaded with sugar and chemicals. And if you saw the tap water I drank along with the soda and the pesticide-laden veggies and meats, there was the trail of tears that created other health problems. I also did not know how to meditate and access my own wise intelligence.

Today good nutritional intelligence is showing up in many accessible places. You can find resources a few clicks away on the internet or in a good book. You can take a course or work with someone in the natural health business. Major news media is highlighting it. Thanks to my daughter Melissa who works for NYT Well Group, I now follow the New York Times Well Page on Facebook. This page is full of nutrition articles, meditations, and workout ideas. Western medical doctors like Dr. Andrew Weil have started to bridge the gap between western and natural health approaches. And now there are health spas and clinics that use holistic approaches to reverse illnesses like cancer, diabetes and heart disease. What a big change in the last 40 years! There are many connections between nutrition and mindfulness. As I have gotten better at knowing my inner body wisdom, I can ask my body if it wants to eat a certain food or take a certain supplement. I follow the energetic response my body gives to let me know “yes” or “no” when I hold a piece of food or supplement.

good-food Our Homes are Alive with Intelligence

In our home space, we have the opportunity to bring in myriad intelligences. By taking time to tap into our inner wisdom, we can discern more readily what intelligences we need. For me, nutritional intelligence that supports me in having a vital life is a key intelligence. Another key intelligence is nature. I have plants and living foods, minerals, animals and the elements surrounding me. If I follow the dance of life as shown in nature, I can let go of things, whether physical or internal, in order to birth something new. My inner still point is another intelligence that creates space for my consciousness to witness itself. As I see the grip my personality has on certain ideas, I am better able to loosen these and allow more pure BEINGNESS to come thru. New ideas then find their way to me that nudge a better understanding. With all of these intelligences working in me and my home space, I more fully participate in the living matrix that powers the Earth.

Mary Hostetter

Green Tips for Your Home

Time for designing and painting your new rain barrel. Boulder’s Water Conservation Program is kicking off this event to educate residential home-owners to start using rain barrels to help reduce water needs for outdoor lawns and gardens. Check out the Boulder Barrel Project for their event September 15 where local artists auction their painted barrels. ReSource Recovery, 6400 Arapahoe Rd in Boulder, is selling unpainted metal barrels for $15.

Need some more green tips for your home? Check out Bright Nest for all sorts of design, home made green cleaning products, and helpful home ideas.

rain-jar Our Homes are Alive with Intelligence
greenhouse Our Homes are Alive with Intelligence

Tuning in ~

 

“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread,
Places to play in and pray in,
Where nature may heal and cheer
And give strength to body and soul alike.” – John Muir

At the Still Point of the Turning World.

Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point,
there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement.
And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline.
Except for the
point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only
the dance.
– T.S. Eliot

everything-is-connected Our Homes are Alive with Intelligence
connected-globe Our Homes are Alive with Intelligence

“Imagine a world where we all know we are an essential living part of the one great, sacred, alive body of Gaia.”

– Suzanne Anderson and Susan Cannon “The Way of the Mysterial Woman