What is a home?

13/6/2016

How precious a home is. How personal. Idiosyncratic. Like a fingerprint, no home is ever the same as the next. Despite the mass-produced efforts of DIY homebases, our homes remain unique, even if our houses are not. Because a home is so much more than a brick and mortar case. So much deeper. So much wider. It’s a world. A series of concentric circles, expanding ever outward. But from what?

Running my finger over the grainy walls, I attempt to draw it all back into me. This creation. The inset beads, the painted stones, each individual window frame. For I’ve been living inside a sculpture. Many times I wasn’t sure as it morphed and grew, whether it was in fact my product, or possessed a life and will of its own.

Yet despite illusions a home, no matter how delicately and intimately arranged, is not us. I learn this now, and it is a rude awakening. As I slowly unpick the loops and peel them back from my soul, my eyes water. For it smarts, this letting go.

With each passing day another ring drops to the ground. And another. Until one day soon I’ll stand bare, shorn of possessions, stripped of my façades. Just a self. A well of being. Naked. Free. Ready to create once more.

And because I’m still clinging, twisting each loop of my home in my hands before letting it fall away, there are keepsakes. Last week, my friend and photographer Melissa Maples came to stay. She rode pillion on my motorbike, used the mosquito net as her bedroom, and partook of the stars, the dawn and the twilight. Her eye for personal detail always arrests me. Without a word from me, she caught my attachments. One by one. My life. Each chapter of the Mud story that has grown out of me, or been subsumed within me. The secret rings of the garden.

And she is a generous soul, Melissa Maples. Which is why she has decided to share her glimpse into my Mud Life with not only me, but you.

So follow me. Through the gate.

This way.

It’s over here.

Come inside...

Melissa Maples' Journey to The Mud

16 Comments

Jon J.

13/6/2016 11:52:34 pm

Wow, beautiful Photos! The landscape and the people :)

Atulya

14/6/2016 09:23:02 pm

:) It's my life in 82 photographs.

Hazel

15/6/2016 12:18:14 am

Stunning!!! Melissa's photos of your mud home and simple mountain life gave me goosebumps! I honestly don't know how you could EVER leave such a magical place, especially one that your creativity and hard work brought to life.

I've been reading your recent posts with special interest since I'm facing a similar decision. There are so many similarities: a hand built home, gardens of vegetables, berries, and flowers, amazing wildlife and views; however, the difference is that I am at the other end of life and the decision to leave all of this is so agonizing. It's being forced by a body that is tired and in pain from hard work and a recent diagnosis of osteoarthritis. I always thought I would be here forever and then be scattered over my field. Leaving would hurt emotionally but staying hurts physically.

My options are not pleasant: move to town, rent an apartment, be trailer trash in a mobile home park. Horrid choices, all of them! I need my peace and quiet, the birds, the long view over my field, the trees, the big sky, the crickets at night. Every single thing I look at or touch hold memories of its creation, its growth, its memories.

I've let so much go already and I can't afford help. The end here is growing closer and I'm kicking and screaming and riling against it.

So, I read very closely your brave story of letting go. You have so many more fantastic adventures to live but I know the change will be a challenge.

I wish you peace when the time comes to leave. Thank you so much for sharing your life journey.

15/6/2016 11:10:09 am

How special the people are who read my blog. I'm honoured. Each comment is so real. Ah Hazel. I understand the hard work aspect. For my part, I can feel there is probably only a certain amount of time (a decade? Fifteen years?) where I'll hold the physical power to keep creating at this rate. But there are other powers that ripen as the physical declines. Nature is so fair in that way. The West doesn't really acknowledge the power and wisdom of age. But it's a well of treasures. Our lands are pushing us to dig deeper and discover. Move beyond our limits. And be reborn. In whatever form that may be. Love to you Hazel from The Mud.

Sandi Berumen

15/6/2016 04:02:51 am

Melissa's photos are absolutely stunning! Some times we get so wound up in our own little world and day to day tribulations that we forget how beautiful every corner of this planet is that we are allowed our small portion of.. You created quite a little paradise for yourself, you fought hard for it and you were able to enjoy it for some time. Following you has been a privilege and pleasure, rooting for you all the way. The pictures really bring it all to life.

To live vicariously through you has been a pleasure and some times edge of the seat thriller. We have been with you through storms and friendships gained and lost; the ground up creation of your place, so majestic and yet also so simplified.

I for one am looking forward with great anticipation of the next journey in your life and the continuation of this one until the new one starts.

Your journey lets us know that there is a place for each and every one of us -- we just need to be quiet, open our hearts and let our own journey unfold to be unique to each and everyone of us. Thank you for sharing and Melissa, thank you so much for sharing your beautiful photographs with us,

Until we all come together again, God Bless, Stay Safe and Be Well!

15/6/2016 11:02:29 am

Oh Sandi, you made me weep. "Your journey lets us know that there is a place for each and every one of us -- we just need to be quiet, open our hearts and let our own journey unfold to be unique to each and everyone of us." Nothing more can be said over and above that.

15/6/2016 05:15:41 am

Amazing! I can see it in the pictures and feel it, you've done all you can do there. It's time to move on.

15/6/2016 11:01:17 am

You are so right. And I am so emotional:) Clinging. Clinging. But it's time.

16/6/2016 07:50:20 am

Atulya,
Most people spend their whole lives doing what they think they are supposed to do. Learning, building a career, settling down, buying a home and maybe having a family. Pursuing someone else's dreams and expectations. The whole time wondering about their own dreams, hoping someday they will be free to live the way they really wanted to live. Most people never come close.
Atulya, you are so lucky to be able to live the way you want to live.
To feel freedom, to know when your time is done in one place and move on to find another. Hoping for the right place.
Peace, I hope you find it.

15/6/2016 05:29:19 am

atulya

22/6/2016 08:44:32 pm

Thank you Ed, your comments are always wise and appreciated.

Mike link

28/6/2016 06:51:41 pm

For your future undertakings, thought you might want to file this info. I ran across this web site, you may want to check out. When you get a chance, take a peek at this ‘PRAIRIE GENERATOR’, it’s cheap elec/heating/cooking, with minimal fuss. Sounds to good to be true, but if it is woweee…
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28/11/2016 12:30:57 am

Thanks Mike!

Nelson Edwards`

8/7/2016 07:58:01 am

These beautiful pictures, of a beautiful life (and dog. The smile on your face with your hands in the mud is just, just, wow!), prove once again that a word is worth a thousandth of a picture. And thank you again for your thousands of inspiring words!

28/11/2016 12:31:43 am

Ah cheers Nelson. Melissa has a knack of capturing more than just the surface of things:)

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