Certainly our house feels incredibly different with Bodhi having moved on. It’s amazing how a 7.5-lb cat took up so much energetic space in the house. Though it feels bland, pale, and stale throughout the whole house, it is particularly noticeable in the living room and kitchen - his main domains. Walking down the stairs to his main floor feels like walking into a watered-down, greyed-out version of this place I’ve been calling home.
Today was also my last day at my office in Hampden. This office was the first one I established office after moving in Western MA, and where I started building my practice out here. For a variety of reasons, it was time to go.
Though I have moved spaces before, it felt odd taking down all the wall hangings, packing up my acupuncture supplies and crystals, and moving out the L-shaped table I built to nestle in the corner. Similarly to the house now feeling bland and colorless, I was conscious that the actions were doing the same to this small room.
After loading up the Jeep, I saged the room and thanked the spirits of the space and of the land for holding me and my clients for these last couple years. I sang the same Winnebago honoring song I sung to Bodhi yesterday, but started to do so without drumming. However heartfelt my intention behind the song, the lack of drumbeat meant something important was missing. Instead of interrupting the song in the middle, I sang it through, then did it again, this time with the heartbeat rhythm of the drum. That second rendition was vastly different from the first, as the drum added layers of depth and meaning.
With my last steps out of the office, I paused and spoke a final thank you into the room. That didn’t feel complete in and of itself, and I felt inspired to offer a heartfelt prayer to honor and welcome whoever and whatever came in the space next. It was a spiritual paying-it-forward. Something in me shifted with that action.
Even though my gratitude was genuine, it was inherently limited to my own experiences there. Instead of saying, “Thank you, and check ya later,”, it was a “Thank you, and I’m leaving positive energy here for whoever comes next.” Instead of just thinking, feeling, and acting like this space was just for me, and honoring it for what it had done for me and my people, I saw it in a much broader context. This space existed before I arrived, and would exist after I left.
This inspiration echoed a recently-repeated teaching that many native tribes consider their actions to have effects on the seven generations that lie come after them. When looking at my actions through that lens, along with the idea that the last seven generations’ efforts gave way for me to have my life, my life takes on a whole different context.
I have felt the ancestors around me of late, circling me, and drawing nearer.