I invite you to rest for a few moments and empty your mind.
Then, when you are still, drop the word **sanctuary** into your inner being and watch whatever ripples out from memory and longing.
My first thought is simplicity. The falling away of demands, distraction, fractiousness; the letting go of social persona, the need to be something for somebody; surrendering all the striving, the effort and the doing.
Sanctuary is a doorway into a space where I feel at home, welcome, able to unfold my authentic being, to relax, expand consciousness and be renewed.
Here are some of the ways I’ve found sanctuary:
Friendship and Belonging
Many memories are coming to me now. I’ve been seeking sanctuary since I was seven years old. At that age I discovered a healthy instinct to find friends with loving families and I was forever running down the road to join them, not so much running away from my unpredictable, controlling family as running towards freedom, nurturance, friendship and acceptance.
That sense of friendship as blessing and sanctuary has stayed with me all my life. 50 years later, at the end of a long plane ride, with several stop-overs, when I finally arrived at my destination, late on a frosty night, the sight of my best friend’s smiling face sent warm waves of relief throughout my being and I was home again.
Solitude
Although for most of my life I have been fully engaged with friends, community and work in the world, since my late twenties I’ve been a big lover of solitude and sought it whenever I could.
I’ve found sanctuary in a succession of rustic cottages in ever more stunning landscapes. Roughbottom, Blebo Mains, Cnoc Rannoch, Durnamuck, Chapelton, Holyrod, Paradise Way, The Garden of Eden, Cronehaven, Bodwrog – these are just a few of the many homes that appeared just when I needed them and opened their doors to shelter me. Many of them were humble abodes, but always with magnificent views, I could be cosy by the fire while at one with the sky and the earth, the wind and the rain. I found refuge in solitude and opened to Soul and the inspiration that is always here waiting when we are quiet enough to listen.
Stepping out of time
I step into a world of silence and simplicity. Prayer flags flutter in the breeze from the deck roof, little rags of hope. The sky is a constant source of illumination and transformation – the progress of the sun from east to west, the ever changing colours, the bright shine of Venus, the soft glow of the nearly full moon, the canopy of gentle stars – this is the only entertainment I need. Here, in this little cabin, built with such love, I am at one with the dance of cosmos. There is nothing missing and what is here is more than enough – an abundant feast, an adventure unfolding moment by moment.
How precious it is to have spaces to inhabit outside the concerns and challenges of the world; sanctuaries outside time, where the day is an unfolding marked by the passage of the sun across the sky. When we step out of time who do we become? Surely, we become a space that consciousness can inhabit? An unconditioned, essential space outside culture, where the soul can unfurl its wings and bask in the kindness of sunlight.
In the world we call this “doing nothing”. When approached wholeheartedly, from a place of presence, this is an immersion in bliss. Here we can know the secret of the honey that lies deep within the flower of the soul, waiting for the bee-ing to come drink and carry away the pollen so that the goodness is spread and can grow and multiply.
So good it is to sit drenched in sunlight, listening to the breeze.
Walking into Oneness
I found another source of sanctuary in walking. Back in my twenties, every weekend, my partner and I would take a train or a bus out of the city and arrive at the beginning of some new, carefully mapped circular walk. We’d breathe in big lung-fulls of refreshing air, fragrant with the scents of earth and sea, farmyard or forest. Cool air alive with the energy of the mountains, sea or river; air blown in on the breeze, mixed with mist, exhaled by trees. Walking was one of my greatest pleasures. Here is a description of a long walk I took twenty years later up the west coast of the South Island of New Zealand:
I had driven this road three months before and seen very little, heard very little, been touched by very little. It was another lesson in how much I missed by hurtling around the world in a bubble of steel. Now I saw, heard, smelled, tasted and touched the world, as it became my lover. The scent of water was everywhere: cascading rivers, the moist and fecund bush, the pounding of surf on long sandy beaches below. Rounding a corner, huge, jagged rocks emerged out of the mist and wild waves leapt in the bright light. As we moved from warm sunlight to cool shade the air was pungent with rotting wood and seaweed, whispering leaves dappled down light, the mellifluous calling of tuis and bellbirds echoed, purple mountains lost their heads in the clouds.
Striding out, supported by the rhythmic movement of my body as I put one foot in front of another, I relaxed into the rhythm. Grounded in the physicality of bush and road, I breathed in the power of this land, the exotic scents of earth and sea and trees, the caress of sun and wind, the bite of frost. Alive with light and as joyful as the leaping surf, I listened for the message of the rocks – everything matters and nothing matters at all, the wisdom of the trees – the only place to be is here, the constancy of the tides – here now is eternity, allowing these elemental beings to teach me my place in the universe.
Then my mind expanded into the limitless space of the sky and headed off into forever beyond sea and mountains. There was so much space in which to listen to the singing of the land, to communicate with the quiet spirits of the river and bush and hear the message of the ancestors on the wind. Like the magician I stood, with one hand pointing to the heavens to bring in my vision, the other pointing to the earth to ground it.
Crowds of stars flowed like a great river of light through the black nights. Time merged into the timeless, crossing over into eternity as we searched in the starry sky for the way home. We were the Starwalkers, who two thousand years before created the trails, carried the sacred stone, brought heaven and earth together.
They say we come from the stars. The stars are there even when we cannot see them. We are being guided. Rest on this thought.
Aah! Remembering stirs an overflowing gratitude in my heart, a warm vitality welling up and brimming over. Memories, recollected in tranquillity and given form through the devotion of writing, live on and come alive again now, twenty years later. There is so much more I would love to share with you. And I know you have your memories too, your own experiences of sanctuary, of being at-one with All-That-Is.
Let me just share one more source of Soul Sanctuary that has been important to me.
Spiritual Community – Nowhere else to be
In my early 40’s I experienced a painful mid-life crisis, a time when all the meaning of my life drained away and I felt empty and disillusioned. After a year or two of suffering, the empty space within me was filled by something I had not looked for or expected. Out of the blue, a friend called and asked me if I would be open to experience a meditation she had been introduced to, and I said, “Yes, why not?” When I was ready the teacher found me.
In one of those moments when destiny moved to support me, I was given tools to help clean out the old addictive patterns from my system. I was introduced to a meditation practice called Sahaj Marg, a form of Raja Yoga, which focuses on cleaning samskara, or the scars of illusion, from the heart. These impressions of deeply engrained past experiences, keep us tied to conditioned mental and emotional patterns and unsatisfying behaviours that prevent us from living innocently in the present. It’s almost impossible to remove these grooves without some form of spiritual practice. In Sahaj Marg the transmission of spiritual energy is passed through the Master to preceptors and into the hearts of disciples.
I was amazed when, after only a few sittings I felt light-hearted and deeply at peace; there was nowhere to go. As I surrendered to the power of the meditation, I felt calm, relaxed and happy, more alive to beauty and closer to nature. Filled with gratitude, I had a physical sensation of fullness in my solar plexus, as if I were being fed. As I became centred and connected, patience came to me. Suddenly my life stretched before me with plenty of time to do whatever needed to be done, in my own rhythm and without pushing myself.
The Challenge of the Return
When we go away to find sanctuary and then we return to everyday life, that beautiful state of expanded, loving consciousness may stay for a while before it begins to fade. We will never forget it for now we know it’s right here within. But often the return to everyday life can catalyse a crisis because now we are even more aware than before that we are not living from our full potential. And the frustration of this is no longer acceptable. If we try and repress it, we become depressed. A change is called for.
Everything We Long For is Already Here
Whatever form of sanctuary you choose – whether it’s the spiritual and creative fulfilment that can be found in solitude; the comfort and belonging of soul friendships; the sense of being fully alive and at one with life that comes from being in elemental nature, or the discipline and bliss of spiritual practice – there is a transformative pattern. You’ll sense an inner call to withdraw from the challenges of daily life to find peace and renewal. This withdrawal is not a rejection of life so much as a turning towards what you truly long for. When you make the choice to follow this call, you find that what you truly long for is not far away but right here inside you, waiting for you. In the solitude of your inner soul sanctuary, you drop into the depths of inner being and know who you are and why you’re here. You connect with your wisdom and guidance. You receive insights and life-changing revelations. You are filled up from within with love and gratitude.
In my next article I will explore the challenges at each stage of this transformative process and why, even when we are hearing the call loud and clear, we may procrastinate and push aside our need to take time to feel fully connected with life and liveliness. And I will explore how, even though it’s wonderful to go away on retreat, we can build our soul sanctuary inside us.
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