priestess of place

Things have been moving around in my house, so of course, things are moving around in me. Over the past years, I’ve come to accept that a core part of my priestessing is tending to this house built right before the turn of the last century. This means being actively involved with listening to it.

The bones of the house come from what use to be ancient redwood forests to the North, and as a youth, the house survived the 1906 earthquake and the fires that raged for days. Sometime in the 1920’s the second floor was lifted from the first floor and another flat inserted like sandwich filling and a stucco front was slapped on over the wood in front.

In the backyard there is the original stable, which was emptied last weekend of over a hundred years of assorted junk. Empty of the stuff, the spirits of the house have stretched out and there is a pleasant spaciousness to the energy here. For the first time, I can recognize the old wallpaper that was put in on the walls of the hayloft, and the particulars of the old workbench that must have been built sometime in the 1930’s in the area that a horse use to occupy.

My bond with this house has been as deep and as confounding as just about any other intimate relationship. Like good ones, it holds me in a loving way while also challenging me and making me think. In it, I find the reflection of myself, in both shadow and light. Sometimes it takes me months to figure out what it’s saying to me, or what it wants. But, relentlessly, it keeps on communicating. The house both demands that history be honored and that change keeps occurring. Juggling the two is a lifetime endeavor, one the house has made me more adept at. There are spirits and ghosts with more tenants’ rights than a Berkeleyite , that will be here long past myself, and there are those the house wants tossed out. Listening to the house, I’ve learned to differentiate between the two.

The stable is cleared out, some furniture is being let go of, even more of it is being rearranged, and this weekend I will be culling thru my many books. Space is being made. This moving of things is mirrored in my jumbled feelings right now, a general sense of things being not quite sorted out, a disarray that promises to result in new perspective on things.

During this time, I'm finding comfort on my rooftop garden amongst the ripening strawberries and peas. It's here that the simple sight of a ladybug on a rose leaf brings joy. It’s here that the house tells me everything is really alright, that letting go eventually leads to letting in, and that despite the turmoil and work of change, I've actually never been happier. Could that possibly be true of you, old house? I think it is.