In Katrina Kenison’s book The Gift of an Ordinary Day, she writes of her newly-built home being “ensouled” by grief after the death of her father-in-law. I have been thinking about this ever since…thinking about our old, old house and all the many ways it must have been ensouled over the centuries…and then of our chapter within these walls…now more than twenty years along…
Of course, when my mother died in her beautiful bedroom here, we felt the grace and hallowed nature of it very clearly, as the sun set and the moon rose…but all of the years of sheltering her…preparing the way for her smiles…simply learning the ways of Alzheimer’s, ensouled every room.
In the months since, I would say that missing her and absorbing all the years of caregiving have also ensouled our home…but the tentative, grateful creating of new ways of being at home and moving through our days has, just as much.
My husband’s recent minor surgery and weeks of recuperation, and even more so, the multi-faceted healing journey that I began in late January have added unexpected layers of quiet and depth to our rooms and the very air at times.
Little altars spring up, peaceful pictures are hung, nourishing meals and drinks are prepared, a new corner is set apart for the work of healing…
As I create a notebook in which to record my dreams with paper and ribbon…or wrap handmade paper and dried flowers around a jam jar for a candle holder, I remember doing the same for my sons and their first schoolroom…which is now our bedroom. And I know that just as their laughter and our encouraging of it ensouled these rooms throughout the years…
…all that we do in the years ahead, in this not-so-empty nest will continue to, as well. It feels like such a privilege…these quiet, tentative months. They have had their pain and their worry, but more so, their possibility. And as warmth and sunshine and flowers are added to the mixture in the days to come, so will the opportunities of ensouling…spreading out from these rooms to the garden and the fields and the woods, as they always have, just in new ways.
