Place

It feels like nesting, this reimagining and creating a new definition and environment for my practice. I find myself mirrored in it. I see now what had not previously been visible even in my imagination. I find myself integrating that reflection back into my sense of Self. I am aware of growing more and more conscious of my intentions and possibilities. In some ways I am, we all are, the space we create.

The Natural World

For the bulk of my years in the practice of psychotherapy I have peered at the leafy body of trees outside the windows of my second story walkup offices. The light and the breeze filtering through the leaves and blossoms of the trees have soothed me and faded the harsh glare of the sun into cool, comforting shadows. The sturdy branches of trees are my container still. They hold and keep my space safe.

The Imagined World

In my imagination all my offices have been tree houses of sorts. In the best of moments they feel magical, like the fairy gardens I built as a child in the roots of tree trunks dreaming of fairies and fireflies dancing there on the hot southern summer nights. Trees are powerful images. The cosmic tree is said to symbolize the ultimate reservoir for the forces of life continually regenerating the world. The world tree is commonly associated with the origins of humankind, offering a nourishing and protective universe from which the elixir or bounties of life may be received. (O’Connell, Airey and Craze: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Symbols, Signs and Dream Interpretation.) No wonder most of my office homes have resided in the treetops.

Symbols

Clearly “tree” and “house” are powerful symbols, the “house” or created environment symbolic of a person’s inner being, the tree symbolic of life regenerating and nurturing itself. So when a person imagines a house, or office environment nestled in the trees, they might be describing their psychic structure thriving. While the “houses” or the spaces I construct in reality are more conventional by far than the ones I imagine, they hold many small symbols from my imagination and my dream world, in part because that is the expression of my nature, and in part with the hope of constructing a safe place, one that allows shared imagination and magic to thrive.

Bringing It Together

I am comforted when I look out the windows of my next “new” space and see the familiar landscape of trees, some flowering, some holding other nests, and some with free-range lizards practicing the art of being lizards.

Reimagined Place

So, my new location, carefully cobbled together for the comfort, stability, and privacy necessary to provide a strong, safe container for magical and creative experiences of insight and personal growth, even if the ride may sometimes be bumpy.

Accessing me in my new space requires a journey out of the city through sparsely developed countryside. Exercising some imagination, one might think of it like the journey of the ancients to reach the special, unique destination that contains the possibility for personal healing and growth. Intentional effort is required.