Already Home:  A Topography of Spirit and Place by Barbara Gates  (Shambhala Publications, 2003)
Paperback due out December,  2004

http://www.barbaragates.com/

How might we repond when faced with death and/or serious illness?

What healing steps can one take to feel more “at home” in body, spirit, world?

Journal-writing
Gardening—connecting with the earth
Getting to know neighbors, joining community groups
Working towards commnity healing
Accepting the “blessings” of others
Taking more risks
Identifying with nonhuman mammals (raccoons, dogs, rats)
Lying on the earth
Meditating
Taking walks-- getting to know  our neighborhoods and broadening a sense of who or what we are--—including the unpleasant,
threatening parts—both present and past (Skunk Practice, chapters  7, 9 and 11)
Taking the vast view.  (See the italicized pages between the major sections of the book.)

What Do We Know About Our Own Home Terrains?

Discuss the Questions for Reflection from Barbara Gates’ website and consider what you know and don’t know about the places where
you live.

Make up some more questions for the list.  If you feel like it, send some of those questions to be posted on the website:
bgates@gtcinternet.com

Homelessness

Discuss homelessness. What are the current numbers in your area, in the U.S., worldwide?
What might it mean to be homeless? What parts of your life could you retain if you were homeless (if you didn’t have a place to be with
people who you cared about, a place where people could find you, a place where you could keep your things, keep dry and warm, etc.)?

Might one choose to be homeless? Why?

When they come in contact with the homeless, what is often triggered in those with homes?  (Read discovery of Dee in Toyota, Ch. 10,
pp. 88- 96, later eviction of Dee from Toyota, Ch. 12,  pp. 107-115)
 

Safety, Risk and Community

Discuss violence in your neighborhoods, in your own homes, in yourselves (Ch 8, 70-76).

Once one has a home, does one have the right to try to make it safe no matter what happens to others? Do rights and/or responsibilities
come with having a home?

Discuss unsafe environmental influences, some which we may not be able to control—how they affect our experience of our homes,
neighborhoods, selves:

Pollutants—What can we do about them?
Garbage—Why do we throw things away? Concepts of ownership. (Chapter 22 and 23, 201-222).
Earthquakes and other natural movements and cycles.
Paving over things that we want to hide, that we don’t want to think about—literal and figurative (Ch. 20, pp. 179-188).

Discuss meditation as a way to come in contact with what is going on inside and outside.  Consider sitting quietly together as a way to
begin and/or end your book group.

What might it mean to "take more risks"?  (Read story on pp 29-30.)

Discuss "Skunk Practice."  What is it? See chapters 7,9, and 11.  Read the scene where the metaphor is introduced: pp. 63-65.

Discuss reliance on community for help, solace, inspiration—neighbors helping one another (Examples: Sheryl’s cat, Grandma Darlene’s
death, Cathy’s leukemia, neighborhood  meditation group, dinners, community meetings, exchange of “words, song, silence”)
 

Projects to Pursue in Members’ Neighborhood Research

Learn about the evolving geology, the landscape, the damage done to the environment, the pollutants, the history of garbage disposal,
cemeteries, etc.

Learn about the people who have lived in this same neighborhood over many generations.
How do we find out about people who lived in/built our homes?  Consider the research methods introduced in the book.
What do we find out?
 (Read about some of the people who lived and died in Ocean View, Gates' neighborhood,  long ago—Annie and William Hans Offe, for
example. These people had their difficulties, as we all do—but were living the best they knew how—as have our own families perhaps
(read page 163).

Who were the indigenous peoples who lived where you are now?  Were there shellmounds in your area?. Other kinds of communities?
Read from Ch. 20 and Ch 21, pp. 179-196).

To support research on your own home terrain, check on the Resource Section of Already Home or the website.
 

Feeling at Home No Matter Where We Are

Review things that keep us from feeling at home.
Review things that one might do to feel more at home. Connections with others, present and past; connections with the earth and other
animals; interior connections through meditation—keeping mind stable but open, inclusive.

Read:  Meditation on grandmother Helene’s chaise—and acceptance of family as well as  neighbors, present and past--with all of our
ordinary struggles, pleasures, heartaches and dreams.  Read from pp.  171-173, and, finally, from p. 228.

Consider what it means to be "already home."

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Thanks to Karen Rosenbaum for the notes from her presentation on Already Home to a Women’s Book Group.