April: Huchi-Fuchi - Goddess of the Hearth

Barnabas Bear guards the Hearth. (Gerton, NC 4/12)

"She was believed to have been honored among the Ainu, a hunting-gathering people indigenous to Japan. (Her) nurturing fire is responsible for the creation of food and the warming of the home." (From the Goddess Inspiration Oracle Guide)

The message of this Goddess is, Surround yourself with warmth by creating an environment that nurtures others. In April, that took two forms for me. The first was a bit of decluttering in my home, where I helped my mother release some old stuff that was no longer being used. The second was a decluttering of my soul, and the beginning of the revelation of my Core Shadows.

In order to create an environment that nurtures others, first I have to make sure I'm able to nurture myself at my own hearth. In April, I found that the hearth-fire had gone out within me. I had run into a small inconvenience for an upcoming trip, and I was feeling way more upset about this inconvenience than was necessary. I found myself making it into something Huge and Devastating for me. When I asked why, the answer began to come out, because it's taking away time I'd like to spend with my Home Tribe... and that's as far as I managed to track that thought. In the next moment, I Lost It. Completely.

To borrow from the band Yes, My name is Victoria and I am the Owner of a Lonely Heart.

Now, Loneliness is not an alien concept to me. I'm an only child, and have never been in any significant sort of Deep Relationship outside of my own family, certainly nothing romantic. There are times when I prefer to be alone, content in my own company. But this was the first time, perhaps, that I really felt the depth and breadth of my Loneliness - and it was intense, and it was not comfortable in the least. I felt the soul-deep desire for Meaning*full Connection. I felt the intense need for a Beloved in my life: someone who could hold me when I felt weak, tired, and wanting to stop carrying the whole damn world on my shoulders for a few minutes. Someone who could sing the song of my soul back to me when I forgot the words, or even the melody. Someone who could be Totally There for me, when I was lost in the Land of Overwhelm, and shine the flashlight in the darkness when my fingers were too cold to hold it or turn it on, so I could find my way back.

More, and More Simply, I felt homesick. I was missing my Home Tribe, my Glowing soul family. Extremely ironic when I'm standing in my own shower in my own home, but there you are. I didn't want to be standing in my shower in California. In that moment, I wanted to be where I felt my Home Tribe is gathering: Asheville, North Carolina. Yup, there. I've said it. I planted the seed at the Equinox, and that's where I really want to take root. This is where I feel the pull, the whisper in my heart that's saying softly, Come Home. Come Home.

Once I acknowledged that, I began to pull myself back together. I acknowledged the Lonely Wolf and allowed her to sit with me, and tell me her story. Another note of irony: this part that wants to be A Part of something will hold herself Apart from something if she feels she's not receiving support - as if the cure to loneliness is solitude! Well, solitude in Nature, when I can feel my connections to All That Is, maybe. But it feels like there's a bit of faulty logic in there somewhere.

So I took my Lonely Wolf to North Carolina at the end of the month. There were times when I felt cursedly apart and there were times that I felt blessedly a part. I definitely allowed my Lonely Wolf to have her voice and full expression - as I shifted my way through my Lonliness, restoked my inner hearth-fire, and repaired the most essential House of Belonging: My Self.
At the end of the latest Big Glow retreat, I was assured and convinced: It was/is time to Come Home. Now all that's needed is to draw the map from Here to There...