Moving On

This is a very personal book - like girlfriend talk. By which I don't mean trite - I mean deep - like the late night discussions I remember having with my college roommate years ago. The kind of book (like my remembered discussions) that asks: How shall we live?

I think that much of Sarah Ban Breathnach's popularity stems from her willingness to be open with us - to be the kind of friend many of wish we had. One who will not only be honest about what they see in our lives, but also about what goes on in their own - including the not so pretty stuff. Being able to do that requires reflection time and a level of honesty that most people do not wish to have.

Sarah B. starts Moving On by talking about books - how meaningful they are - how she has been touched by books - how she hopes this book will reach out to touch us.

She pulls us in with caring comments like:

This book starts with the topic - spelled out in the subtitle: "Creating Your House of Belonging With Simple Abundance". But in beautiful flow, Sarah moves out from the main theme - into related subjects and back again.

Some of the things she moves out to discuss are gratitude, transitions, loss (including divorce and health issues - both of which she's gone through) and clutter.

She also takes us through an examination of kitchen, storage area and bedroom issues.

Sarah Ban Breathnach's main premise is that how we treat our home is how we treat ourselves. Yet, even as she writes about the home-self connection, she tells us:

In this book Sarah B talks about how - in her book, Simple Abundance, she described a way she'd found to overcome negativity. She reminded us:

And, as she offered ideas on tracking gratitude in Simple Abundance, she gives us exercises in this book for helping us learn where we are now and where we want to be - in relation to our House of Belonging.

One exercise required us to go through the house we are in now - taking snapshots in each room. Then - without judgement - looking at the pictures as if we were seeing someone else's house - in a detached way - looking to see what the house is telling us about the people who live in it.

Sarah B asks us to examine how we got to where we are. She asks us to look - to reflect - an activity sadly lacking in our culture.

In a section named "No Mother to Guide Her" Sarah B. talked about lost home making arts. She touched my heart. I began thinking about sewing - and the wonderful lessons that were passed on to me from my designer/dressmaker great-aunt. I have tried to teach my daughters sewing, but I am not a patient teacher - and, until recently, neither of them particularly wanted to learn. I fear that very little of the sewing mastery that I take for granted will make it to my daughters. And then there's cooking. I can make fantastic quiches and souffles, but Goddess help me, I would flunk even remedial gravy class. And my dear great-aunt is gone now, so I'll never learn her gravy hints.

In a chapter called "Come Celebrate Her Home On Women and Change" Sarah B. talks about transitions - how we ignore them and just keep multitasking. She mentions a "ceremony for winding down" that gives her time to transition from work to home. An early mentor of mine spoke of the necessity of that same thing - so I was familiar with the concept. But how many times do I do that?

As mentioned above, loss is one of the things Sarah Ban Breathnach covers in Moving On. She speaks about the suddenness of loss. She has experienced loss due to divorce (after publishing Simple Abundance) and in the area of health (twice she had head injuries that resulted in PTSD). She also talks about the strangeness - and losses - accompanying success.

She openly tells us

And she confesses:"While a passionate homemaker dwells in my heart, it's the messy girl who occupies my home." A girl after my own heart!

It gave me chills to read

Even though Sarah B's writing had been open, vulnerable and grace-filled up to this point - for some reason I expected her to give some orders on how to decrease clutter - a "Just Do It" essay.

Instead she spoke one of the languages of love - the language of Connection - that holistic language of grace and deep understanding (the polar opposite of denial) - that knows that all our selves (our "messy girl" and our "passionate homemaker" and all the other seemingly opposite parts) - are connected - are all US. And that all our selves DO work together for our own good - we just need to listen to ALL of ourselves (parts that are not listened to can get pretty noisy!) The story Sarah B. tells about how clutter was helping her is worth the price of the book.

There's only one thing I didn't like about this book: I did not benefit from the prayers at the end of each chapter. I appreciate the willingness to write them - to include them. But I did not enjoy the prayers themselves. They were written in the kind of language that threw me back to the many experiences I've had where people spoke in one language to each other and quite a different language (and posture and demeanor and tone, etc.) when praying. I tried to read through Sarah Ban Breathnach's prayers a couple times - but each time I could hear a little voice in my head saying "nap time".

It's quite possible that many of you will feel otherwise - and be touched the work Sarah B. put into the prayers - let me know!

Throughout this book Sarah B. weaves stories about the "House of Belonging" - finding, and/or creating, the place where we feel at home. Lately, I've been hearing many people speak about sense of place and the fact that finding where we belong physically seems to hasten the process of bringing us to "home" psychologically and spiritually.

Sarah B. tells us:

"Here", in Sir Isaac Newton's Chapel - which became Sarah B.'s home in England, she finds Herself. And offers us help in doing the same.