Life shifts. Sometimes changes are regulated by the seasons, earlier decisions, and commitments. Sometimes shifts are the result of a deep desire for change. However, at other times, abrupt changes and challenges meet us head-on or sneak up on us from behind. We haven’t asked for them or their consequences. In all cases, I find the critical questions are "What is possible?" AND "What else is possible?".

When change is here and we are called to shift our lives from one place to another, or from one way of being in the world to another, we must respond. Can we open our hearts, minds, and bodies to another perspective and an inner "knowing"? Can we respond generously and openly to the questions that inevitably arise when we go deeper?

In my own life, my sense of hearth and home have grounded me through many changes and challenges. I often felt untethered and lost when circumstances required moves, new cities, new homes. My strength only came back by pouring myself into cultivating a sense of hearth and home in each new space. I knew when this was complete by my ability to relax, let go, and sleep deeply.

Over time, however, with all the moving and remaking of "home" that was required, I began to ask myself the important question of whether this idea and feeling of "home" required a physical location. It was in the middle of this questioning that I came across a beautiful piece by John O'Donohue[1], who offered that "home" can be a matter of knowing intimately our interiority.

And so, I've learned through much contemplation and through many transitions that my home is where I am, and nowhere else. I've learned to find my sense of home within myself. Yes, there are times when I grow nostalgic and when beautiful and tender memories of my life and my children's lives come anchored to physical spaces. Yet, the physical spaces also held a living, loving spirit to them, and this spirit travels with us wherever we go. It's palpable. It lives and breathes within us.

I know life doesn't stand still. The human fabric of our lives is continuously changing and moving. The Weaver is always weaving. The colors and textures of our life's fabric are changing with each experience of living. Can we see the beauty in this process?

Can we ask the bigger question, what else is possible?

May we find our beautiful, sanctuary-home within us and carry a sense of home with us wherever we go, so that no matter where our journey leads us, we will always find we are home.

[1] From Anam Cara, 1996, by John O’Donohue, an Irish poet, writer, and philosopher.

What Else is Possible?