Rituals for inhabiting a new space
I’ve moved a lot in my life. It started young, as a 10-year-old, before I had any real say in it, and I’ve self-therapized this fact later in life enough to come to the conclusion that it did indeed having an impact on my adult life. Thinking about it more deeply, as an only child of immigrants and refugees, multiple generations down, I think it might speak to something deeper, too.
This is not that essay, though.
I’ve grown fond of the rituals behind inhabiting new spaces, partly because I’ve had to, but partly because I do enjoy the process of becoming more intimate with a space, as well. It’s calming. Light hits differently depending on where you are in the world, light hits differently depending on where you are in the room, the time of day, how you’ve oriented the objects in the room that re-orient light, if there’s a curtain, if there isn’t. All of the details that add to light.
Recently, it’s been sweet to write down some of these practices and ask myself what are the rituals we (or I) take to familiarize myself in a new environment. I’ve found that the rituals of homemaking or homesteading or nesting or grounding to be am ongoing, stabilizing agent in my life, no matter where I might be
This might be all one way to say that home is where the heart is, and these are rituals to grounding your heart in a new space.
Rituals for inhabiting a new space:
- Introduce yourself. May be silly, but can be done internally, or simply through presence
- Spend time in new space during different parts of the day, observe how the light changes. Open windows, close windows
- Use light differently. For example, let the light go dark without any use of electricity. Then, on a different day, turn on only one light to see what mood is created as the evening deepens
- Build a fort
- Have company over, new folks, familiar folks
- Repeat
- Learn the space: where do things make most sense? Or, no sense? I like some logic or, some personal preferences if not logic, in my spaces of living. It makes for a more pleasant and grounded time
- But then...
- Once the space becomes a fair bit familiar, however, use it differently again. Switch your stools to the wrong side of the table or island. Move the cutting board, use it on a different and unlikely surface. Resituate a lamp. Add greens
- Face east, west, north, south.
- Dance
- Sun bathe
- Wear different clothing groups
- Add relics, build relics (interpret as you will)
- Cook, establish a familiarity with heat, placement, dish and kitchenware.
- Sit, do nothing
- Listen to the ambient sounds
- Stretch, or do yoga