The thread that is Windgrove

The Way It Is
 
There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change.  But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.
 
~ William Stafford ~

When I think about the creation of Windgrove in relation to Stafford’s poem, there has been a certain thread I’ve followed over the past 20 years. True, it has been hard to explain to others; those friends, lovers even, who wondered then wandered away, never sure of the validity of what I was pursuing. Yet, this thread has remained a relative constant whilst people, myself included, move hither and thither through the seasons of the years.

Looking more closely, I find that if I de-twine and unravel it, this thread is comprised of two strings that make up the whole; a sort of double-helix braiding.

I would label these separate strings the “red string” and the “blue string”; or, what could be called the “soul string” and the “spirit string”. And nothing better represents the visible aspect of these strings entwined than the physical structure of my current home where there is a reaching in to soul and a reaching out to spirit.

To this end, in the house’s construction and fit out, I have followed the red strand of a soulful physical sensuality and the blue strand of a spirited mental intelligence. This woven, single thread allows the house to stand in a littoral landscape/seascape/airscape that mingles deliciously between flesh and spirit.

The “spirit-blue” half of the thread was lengthened this past week when a larger satellite dish was installed to replace the smaller, slower dish, thereby, enhancing my ability to communicate across the globe through Skype and other means. A faster, bigger Mind, so to speak, with more left-hemisphere power; the external, logical, rational aspect.

At times, it is hard to imagine that my first four years at Windgrove were without radio, TV, electricity, or any type of phone. Slowly, over the years I have acquired a sufficient amount of “communications technology” to embarrass even myself when I compare what I have to what I actually need to survive.

I don’t need any of this for myself. But in trying to build Windgrove as a “refuge for learning: dialogues with nature on community, peace and healing” (as written on the Windgrove stationary’s letterhead), I have been willing to move beyond the very real, very comfortable, very sustainable, very manageable Thoreau type of existence I experienced living in the Peace Bus for eight years in order to honour and to keep following and building upon the mysterious “thread” that is Windgrove.

When people come to visit, whether for a day or a week, hopefully what they first encounter when entering Windgrove’s heart center is a feng-shui feeling of harmony inviting a welcoming comfort; where comfort is not just physical creature comforts, but where one’s soul can rest easily. This did not happen from a plan drawn up by an interior designer from some office in Sydney. Rather it employed patience, devotion, persistence, and an obligated willingness to engage with the soul of the house — this internal womb of love and nurturing — over a period of many years.

This past week I purchased a deeply red, hand knotted, 10 foot by 14 foot, wool Persian rug from Afghanistan. It feels so in place that a close friend who visited missed “seeing it”. What I love about this rug, woven by nimble fingers over a mammoth amount of hours, is that it exudes an embodied sense of crafted, cultural skills imparting a globally connected world of Afghani souls to an already soul stuffed home.

Food and wine served at the dining table is now an even richer experience. As this is a shoeless house, bare feet on the rug is a bonus treat.