From the time of birth, with our original separation from the cosmos and the mother, we experience an intense desire to return, to feel one again.

Everybody's looking for home. Some places fit, some don't. Place is important- the third voice in every dialogue. We think of place as background, and yet it is more.

Have you noticed how some places bring a sense of harmony and resonance while other places make us feel disquiet, and out of sinc? Geography is the inner terrain turned outward, externalized.

Shara has been telling me that northern California doesn't feel like home to her, in spite of having lived here for 15 years. She stays because she believes that it's best for her young son and her estranged husband. She longs to live on the East coast.

I remind her that she needs to find her sense of home from within, but I wonder about the power of a physical place to release her creativity.

Jenny has lived here for 20 years, remaining because of circumstances. She longs for Provincetown , and again I suggest that her need to move away may be simply a need to move on in her life.

The inner journey may not require a change of place; on the other hand it may.

Common wisdom tells us that we can't escape our baggage or our problems and that we take who we are with us where ever we go.

Not disputing this, there continues a nagging sense that living in a place congruent with our sensibilities is a great and life affirming benefit.

All places are teaching posts, schools of hard knocks, like courses in subjects for which we have varying talent.

Finding your self in the wrong place and staying there says something about personal power, self-determinism and the willingness to risk.

Place is real and it's also symbolic.

Case in Point

"I do so need another life, a new life. Different surroundings, a different setting…the projection, the continuation of the universe inside me…

"From a fine oversized gray arm chair, I can see a reflection in the mirror above the fireplace. The trees are thick and green, the lush harvest of heavy rain. The sky shows itself above the clerestory, moving clouds in billowy white.

"I never tire of this world view of mine.

"A tiny airplane, en route, looks like a toy. I long to be on it, but I'm frozen in this painting of me at home. Color is everywhere, in the graphic art and in the rugs I've carefully selected.. These are the views and things that support my life.

"Other spaces and angles in this house delight and invite me to stay. I love this nest and simultaneously know I must leave it.

"The bird in me is flapping its wing - flapping at my left shoulder - tapping at my roots. Its time to go; a wild thought, like horses in break and run."

Sometimes attachment is disguised as home; sometimes the strong urge to move on is heralded by the need to find a nourishing environment.

The search for wholeness often sends us on a pilgrimage; an odyssey whose destination is home.

Across time and place, lost souls and travelers alike know this need in an urgent way.

Everyone asks, "Where's home?"

Elaine Z Mosher PhD

The cases in point which appear in this column do not represent any particular individual or couple, but are a composite representation of people with relevant life issues. Similarities with actual people are coincidental.

©1999 Elaine Mosher

Cases in Point: Archive