What is Our True Name and How Many Lives Do We Have?
We humans like to think that cats have nine lives. Do we ever wonder how many lives we have?
We humans also like to think that cats have three names; the one we give them, the one they give themselves, and their real name. How many names do we have, and which of them is real?
There is an old adage that says ‘home is where the heart is,’ but if humans have at least as many lives as cats, does that also mean we have nine lives and, thus, nine hearts? How then do we ever recognize our real home?
During the twentieth century, people seemed more willing than ever before to move away from their place of birth and re-root themselves elsewhere. The seemingly innate necessity to explain everything caused sociologists, psychologists, futurists, and average people to enumerate reasons for what appeared to be a new phenomena. New roadways, new mechanical methods of travel, new economic realities, and a smaller world seemed to satisfy most questions of ‘why’ the sudden mobility, but what if that was the wrong answer?
What if people began moving more frequently because they were seeking their real home, seeking that place where the heart, the mind, and the very soul felt comfortable, felt secure, felt held in an atmosphere of warmth? Or perhaps that place offered encouragement to explore – the self, the possibilities, the opportunities previously missing?
As I sit at this keyboard musing on these questions, a low flying military jet just went over my home, its engine noise screaming and reverberating against the windows, that low and threatening sound drowning all other natural sound from nearby wildlife and my own cat companions who crouch quickly and scan the ceiling with leery eyes. It is that, an entire spring afternoon that will be disrupted by the sounds of war machines past and present which started me on this quest about lives, homes and hearts. Unfortunately, Saturdays like this one are an annual event, a massive air show including ‘performances’ from the Navy’s Blue Angels followed by a massively loud, heartbreakingly long and ostentatious fireworks display and sound show that opens festivities for the Kentucky Derby. We quietly suffer through three weeks of gluttony, childish games, inflated prices, and drunken revelry as a prelude to a three minute historic and traditional horse race.
This is only one of the reasons I know that this is not the home of my heart. My real home, that place where I feel great affinity and complete freedom to do and dream is elsewhere, yet I am here, doggedly trying to carve a satisfactory life instead of back in Manhattan, the cradle of my soul. This place, that place, and the place I was born and various places in between, confirm that I have experienced at least five lives. It makes me wonder about my real, undisclosed name.
What is it about some places that immediately reach out to us with welcoming hands? What is it about them that allows us to open those closed places inside us and to expand, not only our lungs, but our personalities, our emotions, and our intellect? Something in that previously unfamiliar landscape stimulates new growth, opens our eyes to alternatives and choices undiscovered or unknown in our last environment.
I was fortunate in one of my previous lives to travel extensively and to live for differing periods of time in those new and different locations. In only three of those many instances have I immediately experienced a sense of coming home, the internal knowledge that it was a place in which I belonged, in a way that I had never belonged in my home town. (I used to fantasize that the stork carrying the tiny bundle that was me was navigationally impaired, and having no sense of direction, becoming hopelessly lost, confused, and exhausted simply threw in the proverbial towel and dropped me near a house in a convenient open field.)
When we discover a ‘heart place,’ there are elements of that geography that we recognize as ‘ours,’ as though we’ve been there before and been satisfied and content. Although it comes as a surprise, it also seems ‘right.’ Perhaps this same form of recognition is why we are often encourage to let our ‘pets’ choose us, to be aware as we seek an animal companion that they will ‘tell’ us they’re ready to go home. It is instinctual, an inbred ability that humans prefer to ignore, often at their peril if the amount of unhappiness is our mechanized world is any indication.
Another jet is screaming past, heading toward the river over which it will fly and perform awesome stunts for the slavering, wide-eyed crowd along the river bank. Somehow, it all seems even more inappropriate this year as we continue to sacrifice the lives of fellow countrymen in a poorly conceived war far away. Do any of those spectators react like me, empathizing with fearful people who have had war forced upon them, who have been subjected to the sounds and the huge shadows of impersonal man-made machines circling overhead like cold birds of prey and wondering if one of their sudden strikes will tear them or those they love limb from limb or incinerate them where they sit? How many lives were those people allowed? Were they in the home of their hearts, or were they being driven from it by strangers who didn’t have to look upon the fear in their faces?
Again, it makes me wonder how many names human beings have. We know the name our parents gave us, and we know the names our nationality gives us. Do we know our real name – that bestowed by the cosmos to best describe our hearts, our minds, and our souls, and that will be recognized when cosmic judgment sends us to a new phase of existence?
We humans also like to think that cats have three names; the one we give them, the one they give themselves, and their real name. How many names do we have, and which of them is real?
There is an old adage that says ‘home is where the heart is,’ but if humans have at least as many lives as cats, does that also mean we have nine lives and, thus, nine hearts? How then do we ever recognize our real home?
During the twentieth century, people seemed more willing than ever before to move away from their place of birth and re-root themselves elsewhere. The seemingly innate necessity to explain everything caused sociologists, psychologists, futurists, and average people to enumerate reasons for what appeared to be a new phenomena. New roadways, new mechanical methods of travel, new economic realities, and a smaller world seemed to satisfy most questions of ‘why’ the sudden mobility, but what if that was the wrong answer?
What if people began moving more frequently because they were seeking their real home, seeking that place where the heart, the mind, and the very soul felt comfortable, felt secure, felt held in an atmosphere of warmth? Or perhaps that place offered encouragement to explore – the self, the possibilities, the opportunities previously missing?
As I sit at this keyboard musing on these questions, a low flying military jet just went over my home, its engine noise screaming and reverberating against the windows, that low and threatening sound drowning all other natural sound from nearby wildlife and my own cat companions who crouch quickly and scan the ceiling with leery eyes. It is that, an entire spring afternoon that will be disrupted by the sounds of war machines past and present which started me on this quest about lives, homes and hearts. Unfortunately, Saturdays like this one are an annual event, a massive air show including ‘performances’ from the Navy’s Blue Angels followed by a massively loud, heartbreakingly long and ostentatious fireworks display and sound show that opens festivities for the Kentucky Derby. We quietly suffer through three weeks of gluttony, childish games, inflated prices, and drunken revelry as a prelude to a three minute historic and traditional horse race.
This is only one of the reasons I know that this is not the home of my heart. My real home, that place where I feel great affinity and complete freedom to do and dream is elsewhere, yet I am here, doggedly trying to carve a satisfactory life instead of back in Manhattan, the cradle of my soul. This place, that place, and the place I was born and various places in between, confirm that I have experienced at least five lives. It makes me wonder about my real, undisclosed name.
What is it about some places that immediately reach out to us with welcoming hands? What is it about them that allows us to open those closed places inside us and to expand, not only our lungs, but our personalities, our emotions, and our intellect? Something in that previously unfamiliar landscape stimulates new growth, opens our eyes to alternatives and choices undiscovered or unknown in our last environment.
I was fortunate in one of my previous lives to travel extensively and to live for differing periods of time in those new and different locations. In only three of those many instances have I immediately experienced a sense of coming home, the internal knowledge that it was a place in which I belonged, in a way that I had never belonged in my home town. (I used to fantasize that the stork carrying the tiny bundle that was me was navigationally impaired, and having no sense of direction, becoming hopelessly lost, confused, and exhausted simply threw in the proverbial towel and dropped me near a house in a convenient open field.)
When we discover a ‘heart place,’ there are elements of that geography that we recognize as ‘ours,’ as though we’ve been there before and been satisfied and content. Although it comes as a surprise, it also seems ‘right.’ Perhaps this same form of recognition is why we are often encourage to let our ‘pets’ choose us, to be aware as we seek an animal companion that they will ‘tell’ us they’re ready to go home. It is instinctual, an inbred ability that humans prefer to ignore, often at their peril if the amount of unhappiness is our mechanized world is any indication.
Another jet is screaming past, heading toward the river over which it will fly and perform awesome stunts for the slavering, wide-eyed crowd along the river bank. Somehow, it all seems even more inappropriate this year as we continue to sacrifice the lives of fellow countrymen in a poorly conceived war far away. Do any of those spectators react like me, empathizing with fearful people who have had war forced upon them, who have been subjected to the sounds and the huge shadows of impersonal man-made machines circling overhead like cold birds of prey and wondering if one of their sudden strikes will tear them or those they love limb from limb or incinerate them where they sit? How many lives were those people allowed? Were they in the home of their hearts, or were they being driven from it by strangers who didn’t have to look upon the fear in their faces?
Again, it makes me wonder how many names human beings have. We know the name our parents gave us, and we know the names our nationality gives us. Do we know our real name – that bestowed by the cosmos to best describe our hearts, our minds, and our souls, and that will be recognized when cosmic judgment sends us to a new phase of existence?
posted by kaz at 1:35 PM
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