The SPACES we live in . a silent Dimension

Lately I have been thinking a lot about space.

We speak so much about time, perhaps because time is easier for us to perceive. We have Chronos, the measurable movement of things, the passing of seasons, the accumulation of years. We organize our lives around time, we make plans according to time, we speak constantly about what has happened and what is yet to come. But there is another dimension through which we experience our existence just as profoundly | SPACE.

We are beings of time and space, and yet I find myself wondering why we have so many words, rituals and philosophies around time, while space remains almost invisible to us. 

Perhaps because space begins as emptiness.

Before there is a home, there is an empty room. Before there is a studio, there is an opening. Before there is a community, there is simply a place where people can gather. Before we begin to give something form, there is this mysterious nothingness that holds the possibility of everything.

I have been fascinated by the ancient Greek idea of Chora, the receptacle described by Plato as that mysterious space in which becoming can take place. I think of it almost as a sacred tabernacle, a vessel capable of holding the spirit before the spirit becomes visible, holding the spark before we know what it will become. And perhaps this is why space feels so mystical to me | because what appears to be empty is actually holding potential.

And then there is Gaia. The great Earth herself, the primordial ground that receives, holds and gives form to life. And suddenly I see how much of our relationship with space carries this same quality of Earth, and particularly the quality of Taurus | the movement of taking something invisible and slowly giving it form.

We have an intention, a feeling, a vision of how we want to live, and then somehow, we begin to materialize it around us. We choose the objects that surround us. We bring plants into the room. We place photographs of people we love. We choose colors, textures, books, altars, textiles, smells, sounds. We arrange our homes and our workspaces according to what makes us feel grounded, inspired, safe, beautiful, held. We take this invisible sense of who I am and begin to give it a physical language.

And I think this is why I have become increasingly interested in the LIFE of spaces. Because we don't actually create them alone. Every space we inhabit is the result of time and relationship. It carries the influence of the people who have entered our lives, the resources we have had access to, the experiences that have shaped us, the teachers who have shown us another way of seeing, the people who have supported us when we were still learning how to stand.

A space is never only the objects inside it. It is also everything that made it possible for those objects to be there.

This is something I have been learning alongside my husband and my beautiful soul sister Sabina through our explorations of Feng Shui, and also through the many years of practice and observation that have shaped the way I understand yoga and the ethics of living.

I am beginning to understand that a space is not simply something we occupy. It is something we enter into relationship with. It has movement. It has rhythm. It has a kind of energetic ecology. Things accumulate, things circulate, things become stagnant, things open. A space can nourish us or deplete us. In it’s silence it can invite connection or create separation. It can give us the grounding from which we can eventually take flight.

And this makes me think about the ethics of inhabiting. Because if a space has given me something, then what is my relationship to that space? Am I only interested in what it can provide for me? Am I entering because it gives me visibility, safety, belonging, opportunity, a place to express my gifts, a place to grow, and then, once I have received what I needed, simply moving on as though the space itself had no life, no history, no people, no energy invested in creating the conditions that allowed me to flourish?

I don't think relationship works that way. At least, I don't want it to.

Yoga has taught me that practice is not simply what happens on the mat. It is how we move through the world. It is how we enter a room. How we occupy space. How we treat what is entrusted to us. How we receive. How we give back. How we know when to stay and how we know when it is time to go.

And perhaps this is one of the deepest forms of practice | learning to recognize that we are always guests somewhere. Even in our own homes. Even in our own bodies. Even in the places we believe belong to us. We are passing through.

This became particularly tangible to me this summer, during our first real summer break, as we were welcomed into the homes of people we love. I was deeply moved by witnessing how people opened their private spaces to receive us. They rearranged their homes, changed their routines, adapted their tables, changed the way they cooked and even transformed their eating habits so that we could feel completely at home.

There was something very profound about this for me. Because these were not grand gestures. They were simple, embodied acts of hospitality. But they said | there is space for you here. The expression of Zeus’ law.

And suddenly the philosophical idea of space became something I could feel.

A home can say, you belong. A table can say, there is a place for you. A room can say, you are safe enough to be yourself.

This is the sacredness of space. It is not necessarily in how beautiful the space is. It is in what the space makes possible. And I found myself wondering whether, when we are received in this way, we leave something behind as well. Did we leave gratitude? Did we leave care? Did we leave something of ourselves that nourished the space that nourished us? I hope we did. I hope that wherever we are welcomed, we remember that we are not simply consuming someone's generosity. We are entering a living ecosystem of relationship, and our presence becomes part of its story.

This is something I have been learning through siendo as well. siendo began as an idea, almost as an invisible impulse, and slowly, through time, people, collaborations, friendships, teachings and shared intentions, it became a physical space. And then, somewhere along the way, I realized that the space had begun to develop a life of its own.

This is what happens when people come together around something with enough intention. A space begins to carry an identity. It begins to hold memories. It begins to have its own rhythm. And yet I have always felt that siendo is a revolving door. People come in. They contribute something. They receive something. They grow. Sometimes they stay for years. Sometimes for a season.vAnd sometimes the very thing that the space was created to offer someone is what eventually gives them the courage to leave it. I think this is beautiful. Because life is not meant to be possessed. It is meant to circulate.

The teachings, the relationships, the spaces, the opportunities, the love, they move through us. We receive them, we transform them, we contribute something of our own, and eventually we pass them forward. This is why I have been thinking so much about how we leave spaces. We speak so much about entering. We celebrate beginnings, openings, arrivals, initiations. But there is also an art to departure. How do I leave a place that has held me? How do I leave a relationship that has taught me? How do I leave a community that has given me something? How do I leave a home that gave me shelter? How do I leave a space where I was able to discover parts of myself that perhaps I was not yet able to meet alone?

Perhaps the answer is not to hold on forever. Perhaps honoring a space sometimes means knowing when to release it. Because emptiness is also part of the life of space. We cannot continually fill everything. At some point, something has to be removed. A room needs to breathe. A garden needs to be pruned. A vessel needs to be emptied.

And perhaps this is where Chora comes back to me. The sacredness was never only in what filled the vessel. It was also in the vessel itself. In its capacity to receive. In its capacity to hold potential. In its capacity to become empty again. This feels very close to the way I understand life now. 

Nothing is forever. Everything is moving. We enter, we inhabit, we weave, we grow, we change, and eventually we continue. The spiral turns.

And perhaps what matters is not how long we remained in a particular space, but how we inhabited it while we were there. Did we care for it? Did we contribute? Did we honor what was entrusted to us? Did we allow others to grow beside us? Did we leave enough space for something new to emerge?

These are questions I am asking myself as much as anyone else. Because I want to keep learning how to be a good inhabitant of this life.

To honor the homes that open their doors to me. To honor the communities that receive me. To honor the teachers and traditions that have given me ground. To honor the spaces I have been entrusted to create. And perhaps, above all, to remember that every space is temporary.

Not because it is insignificant, but because it is alive. The Earth herself teaches us this. Gaia receives, transforms and returns. Taurus teaches us to tend what has taken form. Chora reminds us that emptiness is not absence, but possibility. And Feng Shui reminds us that the way we arrange, move through and care for our environments is also a way of caring for the life that moves through us.

So perhaps the practice is simple, although not always easy | To enter spaces with reverence. To receive without taking for granted. To give back what we can. To care for what holds us. To create spaces in which others can discover their gifts, gather their strength, grow their roots and eventually, when their season comes, spread their wings.

And when it is time to go, to leave gently. With gratitude. With respect. With the understanding that the door closing behind us is not an ending, but part of the continuous movement of life. Because perhaps the most beautiful thing we can do with any space that receives us is not to possess it, but to leave it more alive than we found it.

And a personal note of gratitude to the many souls, families and ecosystems that have opened their spaces to me and my family, making us feel welcomed, held, and somehow at hOMe. 

Thank you for reminding me that belonging is also something we create for one another.