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From The Innkeepers

October 2019

October- The many forms of Homecoming.

When my grand-niece, Sophie was invited to her first “Homecoming” dance recently it made me realize a few things.  Beyond the obvious one of wow I really am getting older and how did she grow up so soon and so fast, it also made me think of other types of “homecomings”.  The annual fall ritual associated with a football teams schedule is unfortunately one of the few times of year that many people think about homecomings.

For me however, especially in the fall of the year I think of this time as a period of “coming home” to ourselves.  This is the time of the year where we can turn inward and harvest all that our soul has nurtured all year long.   The spring and summer seasons of the year are more about doing.  Then it seems to me that this time of year leading into winter there is an internal shift in us.  Even though it is the height of our busy season with retreat groups here at the Inn and there is much to accomplish, there is a different quality of reflection about it.  The soul is transitioning toward a more inward time, a time of coming home to itself.

I am reminded of a biblical story about Moses and the burning bush.  He was up in the mountains and in a moment of great clarity he felt the beauty of a divine presence in the form of a burning bush, so he knelt and kissed the ground where he stood.  It was a moment of homecoming when everything came together for him and he was further empowered to carry on his mission.  Every day we have the opportunity to feel moments of the beauty of divine presence in our lives.  As the poet Rumi says in the ending lines of one of his poems- “There are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground, there are a hundred ways to come home again.”

May you find one of those ways each day particularly in the season of autumn when the natural world screams with beauty and begs us to recognize it and come home again.

Blessings as you journey,

Marcia