02 Exploring Home: The Spiritual Geography of Belonging

In this episode of Exploring Resonance, we discuss the concept of finding a sense of home and belonging in different environments and phases of life. Ranging from a strong sense of home to experiencing diaspora, we discover that everyone eventually faces some form of displacement, with the desire for home and belonging becoming a core motivator of human experience. The conversation delves into the emotional and spiritual aspects of recovering a sense of home and how this relates to one's sense of identity and happiness.

Transcript

Edward Wertz (00:00)
It was hard to be at home even when I'd moved my family to live with me there. I consider it home now, but it's not like the sense of home that I had growing up.

Elizabeth Sabet (00:12)
And by the time I was 18, I had moved 21 times. And 20 of those times happened before I was 15.

Faten Qalawi (00:22)
coming from a Palestinian family, there is always a continuous feeling of, ⁓ we don't belong here. We should be somewhere else, but we cannot get to it.

Thomas Whitmire (00:32)
Everyone has this break and it's how do you work through that and resolve it that I think is that journey of home.

Edward Wertz (00:50)
Welcome back to Exploring Resonance. This is episode two. My name is Edward Wirtz and I'm here with Elizabeth Sabet, Faten Kalawi and Thomas Whitmore. And we are your regular hosts. For episode two, we're gonna start our normal format. And that is basically a check-in. Each of us will kind of give a life update as to what's been going on for the last couple of weeks. And... ⁓

as well as we'll check in kind of with the topic of ⁓ the podcast. So today's podcast topic is the feeling of home and what it means to each of us. And then weave that into a dialogue after we do our check-ins. Anybody want to go first?

Thomas Whitmire (01:40)
go happily. Good morning and evening and whatever time of day and time zone you find yourself in. ⁓ So it's good to see you. Good to see you all. ⁓ We have just come out of about four days of cold, rainy, wintry, overcast, sort of downcast weather here. I'm down in Chapel Hill right now. I'm on a little...

couple week vacation after I'd mentioned my father died and going through the hurricane and everything last year. So I'm trying to get away. And my check-in basically I've been here about a week, a little bit more. And what I discovered, I had to actually get away from home. Here we go, trying to plug the topic here a little bit. I had to get away from home for a little bit to recognize exactly how depleted I've been. ⁓ Because during the

When you have to, you know, as everyone knows, when you're being called to be responsible and present and attend to a lot of things, you can just keep noticing that or going back to that. But now that I'm kind of out of that context, it has just been holy moly. You know, I pretty much crashed this last week. It really matched up with the weather. you know, I've had this lingering, you can probably even hear it. have a little scratchiness in my throat.

So I'm on antibiotics right now. And apparently the doctor said that a third of her patients yesterday came in with the flu. So I know a lot of people are going through a time of, you know, late winter illness. ⁓ So it's been pretty tough, but I'm on the, I think I'm on the mend right now. So it's, it's resting and recovering and then trying to get into some nourishment. So one of my missions was to try to find.

the good foods to eat that my body really was asking for and to take those in and then just rest a lot. I've been watching Netflix TV shows. It's been a lot of fun. I really don't have much else going on. I restarted some writing, which is excellent. I have a book about some travels in Italy and hopefully later today I'll be going out to do a little catch up with some stick my toe back in the coaching world. So we'll see how that goes.

Faten Qalawi (04:07)
Hmm.

Thomas Whitmire (04:08)
But that's pretty much my catch up. I'm just on a mending couple of weeks here, I believe. So thanks you all. Good to see you.

Edward Wertz (04:19)
up and if nobody else wants to supersede me. ⁓ This past week or past couple of weeks, I've been doing work, feeling overwhelmed at work because I'm in a new role, which is very ⁓ undefined. You know, if you're doing frontline computer development in a company, your tasks are all laid out for you. But

I'm in a role now that is more architecture driven and I'm having to figure out how to self organize and be more disciplined about how I allocate my time and what I allocate my time to instead of getting distracted. ⁓ I was never diagnosed with ADHD, but I definitely feel like I have an overwhelming sense of all the different tangents that

I want to chase down, which I had time for. And it becomes very hard to prioritize when I'm self in being self-directed. And that applies at my programming job, but it also applies in my regular life. ⁓ There's a lot of things that I would love to be able to do as a project, you know, and the idea of picking up AI and helping AI, having AI help me write some software.

to maybe make progress on these big behemoth projects that I have in mind. ⁓ But I don't even have time to investigate that right now. ⁓ So, you know, I just have this buffer in my head of everything going on. ⁓ One of the things that I am making progress on is writing an article for my substat. My substat is called the organizing principle. And

seems to be once a quarter, I managed to squeeze out an article for something that is like a core phase of life that I'm chewing on type of, of processing and the current administration, it's chaos and upheaval and ⁓ destruction of norms or how the government works is definitely causing me anxiety.

And I'm having to reflect on what do I want to commit my energy to in terms of being engaged. It's hard for me to just feel comfortable sitting on the sidelines, even though I've got kids to feed and I really don't have a lot of extra time to get involved. So the big question is what's the best way to focus my time? Where do I want to contribute? And that article might take me a month to write.

It's a slow process for me, ⁓ but it's essential. I think it's foundational for me. I'm really liking the focus that it's bringing. ⁓ For the topic of home, I am somebody who goes kind of energetic and metaphorical before literal. I'm in my home, but I don't necessarily feel at home in my home, in my physical home.

I think home is a state of mind and it's, know, I always want to get back to home feeling like I'm safe, secure, that my needs are taken care of and that I can let the guards down and not have to worry about anything, not be stressed out by an emergency. Right? So the psychological state of being at home for me,

is about letting the stressors go out and that's what's left afterward when there's no anxiety, no resistance, no sense of duty pulling on my system to do things. ⁓ who would like to check in next?

Faten Qalawi (08:37)
So hi everyone, so good to be here with you all. Check-in. You know, Thomas, you said that you're taking antibiotic and I'm taking antibiotic too. I've been struggling with an infection at UT for a while now and they just extended the course of antibiotics. So it's always an interesting experience talking about home. That was really something for me to feel that

because ultimately the body is a home. And when the body has its own thing going on, it kind of brings back this like, can I be comfortable in my body right now? What is my body doing on its own? And how do I become home for my body when it's going through whatever it's going? So it's been an interesting ride with the antibiotic.

At my age, we mentioned last time, 60 years old, it's more and more of a question that keeps rising or coming for consideration again and again. So that's to talk about home and having to take antibiotics as well. What's been happening with me is this antibiotic and this struggle with the UT.

And I've been needing to rest as well a little bit more. And ⁓ also it's the topic of home is really ⁓ very acutely knocking and very acutely present for me as a Palestinian now living in the Middle East and with everything is going in the Middle East, all the discussions that are happening in the world. And I think with Trump.

saying that he can move people out of their homes and just take their homes. It's been an interesting, you know, not interesting, it's like so challenging. So. I have to say that also for me as a Palestinian in born in diaspora. ⁓

The feeling that the theme of home has been a challenging theme and the experience of all of my life. So we can get to talk a little bit more about it, but it's really very present for me as well. So it's very suitable. And at the same time, I have to say that I feel ⁓ quite at home in this constellation here, because there's a lot of safety, dialogue, like-minded people. ⁓

This is in terms of an external home, really. So like you, Edward, I don't feel that it's a building, although the building and the land is very important. It's physically rooting. It's very important. ⁓ But it's also the community as well. So this is if I'm considering all the external factors for home and internally, we'll talk about it more. So here you go, Elizabeth.

You take it. Yeah. Thank you for listening.

Elizabeth Sabet (12:01)
So.

The last couple of weeks, I'm still in Tahiti and been thinking about how do I move to a beach? How do I make my home somewhere on a beach that's not in the US? ⁓ Quite seriously. ⁓ So being in the South Pacific, away from everything,

you still can't get away from anything unless you turn off the electronics. I thought, and as I was driving around the island, it's a very small island. There's kind of two parts of it, a bigger part and then a smaller part ⁓ created by two different volcanoes.

So it only takes like a couple hours to drive around the circumference of the larger one. And I was driving around, it's called Tahiti, Eiti, the small Tahiti. And I swear to you, ⁓ there was on one side of the road, there was a house wrapped in things that were wrapped with the American flag. And Mickey Mouse, Fantasia Mickey Mouse was up there like a big statue.

And then on the other side was another home that was flying the American flag and a Trump 2024 flag.

And I was like, my gosh, there's no escape. You must face this. If I needed any other reminder about, you know, how I, how I need to be active. Yeah. This is not a time I'm actually here to work. And I have been doing quite a bit of work actually. And I have so many projects. came here to get away from home from the responsibilities of home so that I could focus on nothing but

my work and get caught up on a bunch of projects that I'm doing. And ⁓ that's been fabulous. And there was this little spider. I normally don't care for spiders in my space, but there's this teeny, teeny little spider about the size of just the tip of your finger. And he jumps and he's really cute. And he comes to the sink while I'm washing dishes frequently.

And he just sits there and looks at me. He doesn't run away. And then I don't know if it's the same spider or the same type of spider, but I'm sitting on the porch of this little bungalow right now and sitting at this table and I'm out here working as much as I can humanly possibly be working in the fresh air. And he frequently comes, I call him a he, I don't know why, but he frequently comes and jumps on my work.

Like I don't want to hurt you you need to move and if you take a look at the symbolism of animal the animal medicine for the spider it's very appropriate for you know what I'm doing as I'm in the process of writing a book all of these feelings of incompetency and You know like Like what's it gonna matter? You know, I don't have a big sphere of influence

which is I would like to have a bigger sphere of influence because not for me, but for results, you know, for to see more people be well, be happy, be included in community, to see people feel loved. I really honestly believe that one of my main purposes in life is to gather people together and that it is simply my purpose to gather people together so that

the potentials and the possibilities that can happen can happen. People have to come together to make things happen. It's just to experience love in a community, ⁓ which kind of fits into home too. So anyway, these themes have all been bopping along the Palestinian, the Trump audacity of what he's doing with other countries around the world. ⁓

you know, really gets me and I have to get grounded and I have to get centered. And I had somebody openly attempt to incite a contentious conversation with me on Facebook. And it was so out of the blue and so contentious. And so just out there that I was like, ⁓ it just ran through my whole body. And I had to

take a few breaths, get grounded and remember that, you know, I really liked that person. You know, I've always really liked that person. I don't know where this is coming from. Sorry that she's upset, but I'm not going to engage. And I simply sent her lots and lots and lots of light and appreciation for the time that we shared together at one point in our lives. And I haven't heard anything back from her at all. So was it a testament to the power of light?

and appreciation. ⁓ Or did she just decide, you know, I don't know what the intention was behind it. ⁓ You know, just to discover like what side I'm on, you know, I don't know, it was a little unnerving, for sure. ⁓ So I've been staying focused and giving myself time to, you know,

relax and enjoy the nature that I'm in and just keep working. So that's been my two weeks.

Edward Wertz (18:01)
Still jealous of you getting to be in Tahiti. On a beach.

Elizabeth Sabet (18:09)
I'm telling you, I'm still in awe of myself that I let myself do this, that I gave myself permission. I'm still so grateful for myself. I don't think I've ever said that in my life. I hope that doesn't sound arrogant, but you know, it's not something that I normally would do, you know, give myself permission to do something like this. And that was a huge question. It was like, why? Why not?

Why? Am I not giving myself permission to do what makes me happy?

Yeah.

Thomas Whitmire (18:49)
That's right in your coaching ⁓ topic sometimes is like, we always think about why we, you know, why shouldn't we do something? like, what's all the benefits that's going to come, know, happiness, warmth, productive work on stuff that's really important and meaningful for you. That's amazing. So that we all could have that courage and give ourselves permission.

Elizabeth Sabet (19:12)
Yeah, and I'm not lonely at all, you know, zero loneliness. There's nothing to feel lonely about. people here are so lonely.

Faten Qalawi (19:24)
The spider is keeping you company.

Elizabeth Sabet (19:29)
my gosh, and eating bananas fresh off the tree. I'm like, what? My God, it's amazing. So anyway, yeah, it's been such a treat. I'll definitely be back here next year.

Faten Qalawi (19:42)
So are you experiencing a sense of home with this choice?

Elizabeth Sabet (19:48)
Yeah, that's really interesting. home was an interesting topic for me this last fall, and it really threw me. had a lot of healing of that childhood experience. By the time I was 18, I had moved 21 times.

20 of those times happened before I was 15. So if that tells you anything about the instability that I grew up in as a child. ⁓ so those last four years, well, 15 through 18, that was four years that I lived with ⁓ kind of an unofficial foster family. just took me in.

I left. I I left home intentionally and lived with them. They made the invitation and it took me a while to say yes, because I felt like, you know, did. I left my sisters behind with my mother who was not stable. And it was not an easy decision to make. ⁓ So that place had become my first safe space.

since my grandparents' so that place is really home to me. And they run a business, they run a restaurant that I grew up working in from the age of 13. And I love going back home and getting back in that kitchen and working with the ladies and the family in the kitchen. ⁓

So the meaning and the importance and the imprinting of finally having a safe home, a consistent home, even if it wasn't perfect, it was not perfect, but it was consistent. home has a certain energetic imprint. When I go home to Nebraska, there's that sense of how do I put it into words? I'm sure you all can.

probably helped me, but familiarity, consistency, you kind of know what to expect, nothing changes, nothing changes up there, like really nothing. And it's still in the 80s and in many ways. And there's comfort in that even if I'm not necessarily resonant with, I'm not the same person as I was and as a teenager.

there's many aspects about what people believe and what they think and that I simply just don't resonate with, but it's so comforting to have that place that doesn't change.

And ⁓ when my foster mother got really ill, I decided to stay while she was recovering from a surgery and to stay longer. And I mean, my little inner child just went, I couldn't stop crying when she had to go into rehab. She wanted to go into a nursing home for rehab instead of come home, which was really hard for me to see.

And I realized like, my God, if I leave, I'll never see her again. And if she's gone, my home is gone. There's siblings there, but you know, it's not the same. It's not going to be the same and my home is going to be gone. And I had to be with fully immerse myself into the loss of it when it's gone. And I pre-grieved

I feel like I pre-grieved the loss of home as it is now, even though I don't want to live there on a full-time basis. Yeah.

I really cultivated, you know, had to really get into, um, find that me that is home wherever I am while I was there, that was part of the feeling of it. It's like, wait a minute, this little part that is freaking out is old. It's really old stuff. And there's a part of me that I've got to go back and take care of now that I didn't take care of as I've healed. And that's the little, the little one within me that

had such an unstable life and finally found some safety somewhere. That little one had been gripping tight within me all these years and I didn't know she was still there. So having dealt with that and I, when I left, I felt, you know, I'm ready. I'm, ready to let it all go. I'm ready. It's not even let it go just to let it evolve, to let that

home evolved. So yeah, that's what has literally been coming up for me is home. So I'm completely at home here. And I know the ocean is my place now. It is the place on earth that I feel like I can rest completely and relax and be myself. If a tsunami is going to come and take me, then a tsunami is going to come and take me.

Edward Wertz (25:40)
And I've been exposed to an idea that there's a certain geography that everybody will have a certain geography that they feel more resident or at home with. When I moved from Lubbock, Texas to Greenville, where I was working for a defense contractor there, it took me six months before my energy centers could

bind to the land that I was on and have it feel like I wasn't just a visitor temporarily visiting. Now, six months is a long time, but it took about six months for me to get accustomed to the land and even working there for three years. I mean, the nature of the work and defense contracting is everything is compartmentalized and you can't really take anything home with you. can't, you can't, there's a, there's a split in your psyche.

Literally. So ⁓ it's, it was hard to be at home. Even when I'd moved my family to live with me there, we weren't, ⁓ we didn't own a home. We were renting. And so there was just this actual uprootedness to the experience. ⁓ and then we finally bought a home in fate, Texas. And it's where I live now. I consider it home now, but it's not.

like the sense of home that I had growing up. It's not, and Lubbock as a town, I could feel like Lubbock was my home and the broader psychology of things. Like I don't have any friends here. There's, there's, it's hard for me to engage the mental space around me. And now I have all my online friends. So I have that outlet. So it was very hard for me to feel at home in the physical space I'm at.

And so it's just been the practice of how do I just find myself being at home in my consciousness and the things that I do, the people that I talk to, that I do talk to. I work a very remote job. Everything is mitigated through computer interfaces and audio text. I've got my dogs here at my feet, and those are the closest bodies that spend most of their time with me. And I really, really miss.

the visceral liveness of people in person, but I am more at home with you guys having this dialogue through a digital interface than I am with the people next door.

And so that's been an interesting thing to think about is that

You know, the level of comfort that I have with myself in this context is higher than the level of comfort I have with the person living next door to me that I don't talk to. And they're of a different culture and, and it's like four different families living in that one house. ⁓ They're very different culture, but they don't go out of that, of their small space either. So it just is interesting.

the world that we live in now compared to pre-technology where you would actually go and talk to your neighbors in order to have any kind of social interactions.

I don't know where that's coming from, but or how it furthers the conversation. So I'll pass it on to the next person to talk.

Faten Qalawi (29:31)
Yeah. ⁓

Thomas Whitmire (29:33)
I've been just jotting some notes as everyone's talking because I think this is great. We're all kind of contributing different sensibilities of what home means. So like from Elizabeth, you'd mentioned your place, you know, I was thinking of roots, comfort, familiarity, safety. I certainly experienced that growing up. I know not everybody did because you could have a home that's not comfortable or safe at least. So I'm lucky to have had that. And you mentioned a

often it seems like there's a person or people who anchor that feeling. So I'm certainly going through what you were describing now with the passing of my father. He was definitely the anchor point and I can go there and definitely there's still my mom and my brother and some people I know, but he was kind of the cultural anchor point of that sense of home. For me as well, as you know, it was land. That was a very strong sense growing up because I grew up on a 50 acre farm.

And just that was always there. That was like the rock of my life or as I call it the anchor of the kite, you know, and I could always come back to that and fly as far as I wanted to, but I knew that kite was still there, the kite anchor. ⁓ Edward, you said a certain geography that resonates. I think that's a really interesting one as well. And I really just wonder, even if it can be genetic for myself, like when I know when I went to Italy the first time, something just clicked. I was like this.

I've not felt this way with land like this before. Like I don't get that. I've lived on the East coast my whole life. I don't get that here. The closest I've had is up in like Pennsylvania, I guess. What causes that? I don't know, but like maybe there's something there, you know, we've had potentially centuries or millennia of genetic selection to respond to a certain terrain and certain food, you know, maybe that's in there. And even Elizabeth, I wonder with you like.

Some of, or Edward, you Lebanon, it's a coastal, a lot of that's very intimately linked with the Mediterranean, you know. So growing up in the middle part of the country, I'm really fascinated that you're now going over to be in an island and beach environment and finding that. Edward, you mentioned an integrated home and work experience. So there's something about integration. Like I feel.

all parts of my life recognize the other parts as opposed to having them separated. And then you also mentioned an emotional home. So that I've often differentiated between like Italy I've called my worldly home. And when I've gone to Korea, I was like spiritually recognized that a lot in terms of like, you know, Italy is where I want to go to just relax and feel worldly present. My body is here. This feels really matched.

Korea's like wakes up my spirit. I'm like, yeah, this is my spiritual home. That being said, I'm definitely wanting to get some coastal time. I keep Googling places to visit Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico and the coast of Italy and all this stuff. So maybe one of these days I'll find that place too. Thanks. I'll keep tracking these notes too. We'll put them in the show notes or something.

Faten Qalawi (32:52)
Last year, think, not 2023, summer of 2023, I was visiting Turkey and I was visiting with my daughters. I've spent quite a long time in Turkey in my youth visiting in summer times, but we were not on a city. We didn't go to a city on the Mediterranean. This time,

We were on a coastal city, it's called Fethiye on the Mediterranean. And the minute I went into the water, I was like, my God, feels like I'm back in my mother's womb. It literally felt like home. My body knew it completely, completely. ⁓ My ancestors, my mom and my dad, I mean, not so far ago.

We're both born in Haifa in Palestine. So this is a Mediterranean city. And when I was in the water again, it was amazing. I recognized it right away.

I mean, my body recognized it right away and then everything else did as well. So talking about the geography and how do you know that, it was kind of affirming. I also have had another experience, I think it was in 2017 in Jordan. We were invited to go visit somebody who owns a date farm.

as we drove down the, beside the doors of the Dead Sea and then past the Dead Sea. ⁓ And then we got to the date farm and ⁓ as we got closer and closer to the date farm, I didn't know the exact location.

It's just my body started to react in a certain way. started, my heart started beating. became very sensitive. And by the time we reached the date, the date farm, I was in tears. And when I got in, didn't know what's going on with me. And then when we went in, it was by, it was almost evening time and I could see the lights across from, you know, from the little house that's in the farm. I could see the

Elizabeth Sabet (35:15)
Thanks.

Faten Qalawi (35:29)
lights and it was like these are the lights of Jericho. And this is the closest that I have ever been to the border or to the borders of Palestine. ⁓ One of the reasons actually, I have never, I haven't yet been to Palestine because I couldn't because I

My family being from the people who were driven out of the land in 1948, ⁓ we had no right of return. We couldn't go back or visit. So when I acquired my, now that I have my Canadian citizenship, I can go back and I can visit. So I can go back as a Canadian, not as a Jordanian or as a Palestinian. So, but I've never...

kind of, I was never able to ⁓ judge physically how my connection is or my response. Because I was born in diaspora, I didn't really measure my connection as I was growing up in terms of physical connection. But the closer I get to the water or the land, my body starts to have its own experience. And this is when I know that, my God, you know, like,

There is a sense of home that is independent of the stories. It's just the body knows by itself. And that was very affirming to me. So I felt the connection to the land and to the water more than anything, ⁓ even without knowing. So it's interesting to talk about the geography and just

speaking about the geography, I think that for me, home is a very complex issue. I don't see it as a simple issue. I see, so I mean, there is the spiritual home and the physical home and the emotional home and the social home as well. So I've always found it to be very, very challenging and very, because it's also, for me, ties into belonging as well.

like belonging safely to the place or to the people or, but also for me, there is also the sense of inner home. And I think one of the, you talk about doing your certain kind of work, Elizabeth, I think for me that last year, when I decided, when I felt the call of coming back to the Middle East after 25 years being in,

Canada, I just was dreaming. I was dreaming about my dreams were drawing me back consistently and, you know, continuously, repeatedly. So eventually I was like, okay, I'm going to go back. And then when I came back here, I just, understood it by my physically, by my emotionally and spiritually, it feels like a ⁓ settling of ⁓ a question kind of.

of connection and connection to something. It was the connection to the land, but also it was preceded by a sense of peace within myself.

Like that questioning, that ordeal about. ⁓

where to be or that inner discussion of belonging was already settled. And that preceded the move, didn't come as a result of the move. So I feel that it was initiated by settling down within myself and being able to be with the different parts of myself, being able to feel ⁓ at home within me first.

And then things started to unfold physically.

I don't know about you, Elizabeth, but I feel like, ⁓

Because I grew up not feeling that there is a proper social home in terms of the coming from a Palestinian family that's, you ⁓ it's not really, you know, like ⁓ the same nationality or of the country that we grew up in. ⁓ And there is always a continuous feeling of, ⁓ we don't belong here. We should be somewhere else, but we can get, we cannot get to it.

That imprint still stays inside, but it's a different, the healing about this has been relating to that imprint in a different way. It's still there. I mean, it still gets triggered. I can't say it's gone, you know, like it's gone. I don't think, I don't know if, I don't know about you, but I don't feel that it ever goes away. It just gets triggered by different situations, different.

events, I relate to it differently. But that's why I say it's a complicated issue. Because I think this, for me, that's, you know, that's a place of injury. It comes with the nature of occupation. And of course, country as a home, you know, as a bigger concept of home is

Of course, family is a home and luckily I had family, had stability that way. But my whole family did not have a country as well. So country as a home should be a place of freedom, safety, being able to be yourself, you have rights, have all these things. So I wonder about all of this. So I'm going to leave it at

as an open question because to me it's still an open question somehow. It's not completely settled.

Yeah.

Elizabeth Sabet (42:12)
you know, imprinting that you're talking about, it literally is imprinted in the brains, neurologically in our brains. The trauma of the loss of home or the instability, the experience of not belonging, that's literally imprinted into the physical neurological patterning of your brain. And so

While we can with effort re pattern and reprogram our brain 70 % of the brain neurologically.

⁓ I don't know that I think it depends on the trauma and I think it depends on the longevity of how long the experience was as to whether we ever get rid of that imprint or not. ⁓ I do know that the, you know, the etheric body gets imprinted energetically with it and what's not resolved in this lifetime carries on in the etheric body in the soul.

and the imprinting of the soul and programs the soul and that goes with this wherever we go. And so I agree that it's we we heal to where, at least in my experience, and from what I'm perhaps hearing from you, Flaten, is that we can attend to the trigger differently ⁓ and attend to the imprinting differently. But it takes effort and it takes conscious effort. And there's a decision

Now, once we're able psychologically and emotionally to make a decision that we're gonna be with this differently, then we can be with it differently. But there are times and circumstances where it's gonna get triggered no matter what, ⁓ especially with all this noise. Of course, there's been no action around Trump's plan for ⁓ Palestine and the Palestinians. It's just a lot of noise right now.

⁓ but it's, it's, ⁓ it's a noise that's causing injury. And, ⁓ the action hasn't happened, but the injury is happening and the imprinting of that injury is happening in the minds of people and in their experience, it's creating that sense of, you know, insecurity on top of insecurity on top of insecurity. And, ⁓ yeah.

It's been something that I've been having to deal with, like I said, just internally with myself. But the imprinting is a big deal. I think, and I'd like to bring up the astro-cartography that you're talking about, Edward. There's a term that you can put your astrology into an astro-cartography program or hire an astro-cartologist that works with this.

to find best place for you to live the best place where like business partners work. If you need a certain job done, where should they have come from? You know, what is their imprinting? ⁓ And yeah, so much of what you've talked about thought and is resonating with me and

Thank you for sharing.

Faten Qalawi (45:51)
I also have a question.

My question is their experience or sense of home, being at home, and how does that morph?

Elizabeth Sabet (46:04)
I think that's a great question. And I think we would have to ask them. I can speak to that from my ex husband's perspective. And where he spoke quite often about feeling homeless, and not really fitting into this culture completely, even though it did become quite Americanized. But

He became so Americanized that when he would go back home to Iran, he didn't fit in there anymore either. And he lost his home when he could finally safely go home. ⁓ It was such a bittersweet experience because he had changed so much and not knowing where he belonged anymore and having a sense of not even belonging in his home anymore.

the trauma of that was quite significant for him. I think it would be a great idea to have somebody on the show with us. ⁓ I'm in and share about their experiences of not belonging. You know, in the country that they grew up in. ⁓ I think, you know, we can all feel that way. At times when we move around. ⁓ Being

you know, moving in with my new family, even though I was wanted, I didn't feel like I belonged for a long time. It was still a sense of, don't, you know, I'm not really one of them. And so I think it would be great to, you know, ask somebody who's watching this to reach out to us and to continue this dialogue from that perspective, Sutton.

Faten Qalawi (47:59)
Okay.

Elizabeth Sabet (48:00)
So Edward, I'm curious about what your perspective is on this coming from your background and observing your family.

You're muted, Edward.

Edward Wertz (48:17)
else. And I identify with the broader sense of American ideals. But lately, you know, with the whole nation, half the nation aligning behind Trump, and I just don't understand, and I don't feel at home here anymore. ⁓ The template that I have inside of me

is less about a physical location and more about a cultural way of being that allows the individual to, you know, release their self defensiveness, the sense of needing to protect yourself from your environment or protect yourself from the people you're around. And, you know, like you, Elizabeth, I feel like it's my mission in life to, to

help co-create a culture where people feel the freedom to release their sense of defensiveness and that we can create like this ambient field of welcomingness, of genuinely appreciating people's core, their souls, and the experience of the community. You know, it's very...

We grow up and, you we're supposed to have this experience with our immediate family and with the tribe around the immediate family, the extended family, where there's just this innate, unconditional, you belong and you're a part. And many of us don't get that. I was lucky enough to get that, but I still internalized a sense of not belonging. But

It would be amazing if we could actually anchor a culture of people who understood the value of just creating a welcoming space for each other.

You know, that we could take the time to sit down and dialogue and just allow that person to bring up the intimacy of their own inner world into that space that we should all share together. Now that's, what was chewing up in me. ⁓ you know, I, I feel like the sense of home is this valence of connectivity. You know, am I free to let.

the soul that lives in me to come out fully and participate in the environment and in the relationships with the people around me. And if I'm not free to do that, then I'm not gonna feel at home in the situation that I'm in.

Elizabeth Sabet (51:21)
I think that is such a great explanation of how we all feel home.

you know, regardless of what your beliefs are, I think that is the great definition that freedom to be yourself and to be received as yourself.

Yeah, without judgment.

Faten Qalawi (51:50)
Yeah.

Elizabeth Sabet (51:53)
And I would agree that ⁓ America doesn't feel like the home that I grew up in ⁓ because there's always been disagreements in sides and political divisions and whatever, but the veracity of hatred and the veracity of the refusal and inability to sit in dialogue and listen to people.

and really take in there to really try to understand people, just completely dismiss and deflect has been such a glitch in the psyche of how we experience home for me, how I experience home, how I experience the country. So yeah, it's interesting.

Faten Qalawi (52:52)
know, and I'm hearing a lot of, you know, I'm a lot of that home seems this, this emphasis on the aspect of the relational aspect of home, feeling of home. So this is the, it seems like we've been talking here a lot about

Elizabeth Sabet (53:17)
How?

Faten Qalawi (53:19)
home is related to the community and the way we relate to others and others relate to us and how that participates ⁓ in a sense of home.

Is this accurate? That's you were talking about. This expression of it's a place where I can be authentically myself.

whatever is that self, can authentically be myself and feel safe to be authentically myself. That seems to be a relational aspect, isn't it? ⁓ A social one.

Thomas Whitmire (54:01)
Well, this topic, the more we talk about it, the more everyone's contributing, the more I realize like, this is one of, if not maybe like the core arc of a lifetime is that relationship to a sense of home. And even, you know, we're talking about politically, how can, what once feel like home?

not feel like home as much. And there's any number of examples for that. You know, I took a couple notes, I come watching the

intense documentary about the Black Hawk Down. And so many times people are fighting for their home. You know, maybe now I feel like the U.S. feels less like home, but other people maybe who voted for Trump feel like they've reclaimed it. And now I can feel at home again. Now I've got my home back.

It just politics and home and not only politics relationally, you're absolutely correct. just, don't know. This is like the story of a lifetime almost, the relationship of home and that, how much of that motivates us, you know.

Faten Qalawi (55:18)
close.

The idea of being.

No, go ahead, please.

Elizabeth Sabet (55:28)
I was going to say, yes, it is so much of it. how, you know, if you're a child and one parent changes all of a sudden or they die, then your sense of home is ripped apart from you as well. That's all there. But the land is extremely important as well.

The land of your home, the land of your birth, the land that's supposed to be the home of your birth that you don't have access to anymore. ⁓ When the land is in trauma or a part of what you can't experience anymore, then that becomes more prevalent. And when I think what I'm hearing here as well is when your experience at home

relationally and physically changes. There's a shift, there's a change, there's something that gets unanchored from you, or as you were saying, you know, for others anchored. Right? And I kept thinking about the experience of the American Indians, it was like, you know, we did it to them, what's our karma for that? What's our race karma for that?

I was also wondering if what's going on with Trump isn't karma for what the CIA did to Mosaddegh in Iran in the 50s or the 40s. I forget now the Iranian history. know, Mosaddegh was a moderate and the CIA wanted to shah's dad in power. And so they engineered this coup. But the people wanted Mosaddegh.

who was a moderate. you know, you put in and Shaw was puppet of the CIA and took the culture too far one way, there was an equal and opposite reaction, which was Khomeini. And, and I think we're beginning to see that in the US. I'm starting to see these, you know, so is Trump the karma of the US?

Is it the natural swing from one to the other? in society, we're always...

swinging from pendulum, one side of the pendulum to the other. And my hope is that we can evolve to beating, become more moderate and come into a more moderate swing where we're not constantly doing this and equal and opposite reaction to that. And so our sense of home generation after generation is constantly getting uprooted. And now it's happening to

moderate and liberal white people in the US not feeling like they're at home.

Is it just history and it's just constant part of history? And if that's the case, then isn't that a reflection for us being wandering spirits and being spiritual beings, having a experience and not being at home? I don't know. That's where my mind has been going around home these last few weeks.

Thomas Whitmire (58:57)
Yeah, a hundred percent. I'm forming a hypothesis that everyone has an experience. That's a generalization flag, but an experience of displacement from home. Be that at minimum when you move out from your childhood home, ranging to, you know, choosing to be able to move like I've done or Elizabeth's visiting to being, you know, forcibly displaced.

with any number of examples historically. And there's that whole range, you know, and you can include now environmentally, know, fires in California, hurricane in North Carolina, elsewhere. So we're having this, and then what, how much does that desperation start to create new, you know, responses and now what do you want? Well, everyone needs to find a more safe place away from the environment, you know.

So that's what, you you get down to the earth itself, you know, holy moly, nowhere's safe for my home now, you know, potentially. And so I feel like that's why this is unbelievably timely. Edward speaking about creating a space of home relationally, and yet we're also talking about the political side, the environmental side. And yes, I would argue, I will argue unless that's right word, spiritually.

You know, ⁓ going through that experience of losing, at least in some ways a home, maybe through a parental divorce or spousal divorce. You know, you've lost your home. Everyone has this, this break and it's how do you work through that and resolve it that I think is that sort of, you could probably stage it out in a Jungian sense, like that journey of, of home. And I'll stop by sharing the brief story.

My father on his deathbed kept asking, literally he meant it physically, when do I get to go home? When do we get to go home? And you know, we kept, you know, well, Jerry, you're at home right now. I knew what he meant. knew it wasn't going to resolve his feeling, but I'm like until the very end, know, and Fatin, you mentioned with your age and you know, health concerns can increase. Like he got to the point where he couldn't feel at home anywhere.

you know, until he went over, you know, so I don't know, I'm just throwing out a bunch of ideas, no conclusions here, but it's just really, really incredible to see this, this theme appear in so many different domains, you know.

Faten Qalawi (1:01:38)
I want to say that we're also looking at this from one side. We're looking at it from the side where we as human beings, okay, are relating to the earth. I want to say the earth here, okay? this feeling of, you mentioned it's the land, the water, the air, the trees, the place we are in when it calls for us or when we are in that place.

That's it. And we're like, we're feeling home. But I think this is a, since it's a relationship.

So I wonder how the home relates back to us. So when you speak about the hurricanes and the water and like we are part of the environment, we're not like separate. We perceive that we're separate, but we're not separate, right? Like the birds and like the bees and all the other elements that are on the earth. mean, we see ourselves as different from them, but just like that.

that land is a home for all those species, it is also a home for the inhabitants of that land, the humans as being parts of those species that are there. And with all the species, we see this as a reciprocal relationship. And when it comes to us, we don't. We see it as if it's almost or in general, see like, I don't know, I can't say a talk on behalf of everyone, right?

But we, there has been a separation where we see as if we are relating to it, but it's not relating back to us. And this has been interesting to me because I'm like, do I look, do I yearn or look for home in a community only, or do I look for home or was I yearning all of my life?

as well from my feeling that I did not belong really in a community and a society because I was, I was, you know, I was alien to, not alien, but I was almost coming from immigration, person whose land is not available to them. Right? So that's part of the experience of occupation. You don't belong, but then there is the land. There is the land itself.

What land, what, you know, when you talk about the geography, I feel it's a reciprocal relationship and to tune, to kind of tune our senses and feel what land is asking for or what land stipulates the type of inhabitants that are on it because they relate to it in a certain way, whether it be the land or

whatever, not just the geography, but the consciousness of that geography. And this is a very shamanic perspective. And I love this perspective because it's really, it's a perspective also that's very energetically sound.

or it seems or it feels to me energetically more sound.

and more holistic.

Because we can feel belonging in a community, but is that enough? Is that integrative enough? And when you talk about being born, the earth itself is part of another realm and we descend from that realm into this realm. And I feel that's not the coincidence. ⁓

It's not a coincidence that I come to this land or to this family or these ancestors. It is a movement and I don't think it's a movement that is one way. I think there's a dialogue. There is a dialogue that's continuously happening.

And that's changing for me.

the experience or the meaning. I mean, I'm traveling through this journey. But it's one of the things that I'm finding that is changing for me as well, or maybe one of the gifts of being born in diaspora is that I got to, because of that suffering, I got to also, we know a lot that because of a certain pain, that pain can move us towards the question or towards

trying to understand or towards a resolution. And usually we don't get to a resolution, but we get to insight. So I'm wondering about this and I'm putting it here on the table to all of you. What do you think about that? What are your thoughts?

Edward Wertz (1:06:55)
He's got a lot of thoughts.

Faten Qalawi (1:06:56)
Okay, let's listen. Let's hear it.

Edward Wertz (1:06:59)
You know, you raised the question of, it just a community that you feel at home in? And your question brought up the question of ⁓ communal empathy. Like you're communing through a deep empathy, not just with people, but also the environment you're living in. And that that environment is receptive.

or self experiences the depth of your ability to relate to it. And it senses your sensitivity to it, ⁓ is what I'm trying to say with a communal empathy. You're experiencing it deeply and your spirit is communing with its spirit.

⁓ The other thought that was occurring to me is the archetypal development that takes place. know, we're born and in the younger state we're more open, but we're developing two things. We're developing autonomy and sovereignty. ⁓ And autonomy is just the ability to...

you know, bodily autonomy is your ability to control your body and move around. But the sovereignty aspect of it is that are you able to govern what happens and determine what happens in your experience and around you? And, you know, there's a lot of people that pursue power and use and accumulate their sovereignty about what happens around them and to them through power.

⁓ but I also think that towards the empathy that you're, you're asking about where you're, you're communing with your environment, think there's a form of sovereignty where you're not dominating, but you're open, receptive, listening, and, and moving with in harmony, ⁓ with the environment around you. And that you're doing it in a sovereign way. Like you're

You're listening to the needs of what's occurring around you and you're taking action to facilitate to meet those needs.

Elizabeth Sabet (1:09:28)
You know, from a shamanic perspective, ⁓ when I travel someplace, ⁓ I connect with the spirits of the land and the ancestors of the land. And I thank them and I ask them for permission. I ask them, is there something here for me to know? Sometimes if you're working in the shamanic realm, like both Fatin and I do,

Sometimes you have a sense that there's some ancestral healing or some land healing or something that the land is needing or wanting. ⁓ so that communing that you're talking about, Edward, you know, happens on, it can happen on many different levels. And the more levels that we commune on or with, the more levels of consciousness, the more levels of experience of life that we commune with.

with that sense of respect.

I think that helps us feel more at home wherever we are because the land itself,

holds memory and holds there is a communing with the land that occurs. It's why, you know, I believe why Fatin has had her experiences that she's had in her body is because there's this collective consciousness of communing with that land that's in her DNA, that's in her etheric body. It's a part of who she is. And her soul is experiencing the communing with that land.

Right? So part of governing ourselves with integrity is being aware, as you said, of the needs of all of the aspects.

of where you are. Now, sometimes that's not received, right? Your communing is not received by the people of that land. And there's not really anything that you can do about that. It's to you to decide whether you're going to stay there or not, you know? But yes, Fatin, I do think it's more than just a sense of communal belonging.

But I think that that, you know, as Edward was saying, that there is this broader sense of coining as well.

Thomas Whitmire (1:12:10)
We studied in coaching client being client centered, studied in teaching being student centered. And Fountain, you got me thinking about being earth centered because this whole conversation about home, really I've been approaching it. I don't feel at home. Where's my home? You know, in a way I've not been listening to the earth.

It's constantly generating.

itself is home.

There's a generativity.

that it is, that's its magic.

Edward Wertz (1:12:56)
very Daoist, that there's a way that you could, you know, a way of things moving, evolving, that you can align yourself in harmony with.

Faten Qalawi (1:13:06)
And that also if we can think about it as you're in partnership with it. that might be like in Islam, ⁓ In the Quran, it says that, it stipulates that God has kind of designated ⁓ man to be a steward of the ⁓ earth.

⁓ not of the earth. That's a very big, you know, but in the earth, a steward. So they, don't own the land, but to be a steward of something, it's almost like you need to understand it. Really. You need to understand how it operates, what needs are and all of this. But it's also, there is this relation, you know, when you talked about this relational aspect of home.

And in terms of with other people and community, but it was like, okay, but there is this relation relationship with the earth itself and all the environment, the animals and the plants and all of this and the water and the air and all of this. And the light in that place, whatever is stored in it, the history that is filling the space, the history of, you know, of

in the land itself that comes through the food, the plants. I mean, why do we bury bodies? The bodies that we bury, all the bodies, are you cremated? ⁓ Maybe this is something out there to talk about, but when we talk about this, we talk about birth, we have to talk about death. So everybody dies and they get with everything they ate and their history and their...

energy and their stories and stored in our bodies, in our tissues are buried in the land, you know, across history. So it's full of that history. And then we are born in that, to people on that land and we're eating from that, you know, from that food that is coming from that literally absorbing all of this history as well as we eat it. ⁓

might all look awful in the images of people in the minds, in the mind, in our imagination that we're literally maybe drinking from that history somehow. The plants drink it and we eat it as well, or the animals. So I feel it's a partnership. So at least for me, this point is like, it's not just that I'm

relating to it in terms of, you know, I'm serving it, but it's, there is also a partnership.

For me, okay? So there is a dialogue and we might even sometimes negotiate things with each other. We might, know, like a full partnership, like ⁓ the partnership would have with another person. We would have it also with an environment. And then there is this dialogue, you know, if you know what that does, what I also can or cannot do. So there's, with all the aspects of a relationship.

So the relational aspect with the land itself as well, I feel calls. So when you spoke Elizabeth about the experience I was having in response to the land, I wonder sometimes if the land was also communing, if the land was speaking as well. It wasn't just the history in me responding to.

the energy in the land, but I wonder if there was a dialogue and I was hearing something else through my body that the land was seeing. And the closer I got, the more I could hear it.

Elizabeth Sabet (1:17:11)
Yes, I absolutely believe that. I've had many experiences of the land speaking to me in certain places as well. And it's not a made up thing. There is a call from the land for your presence, for your attention. There is a calling of something. And it's unique to each place and to your connection with it.

Absolutely. It's a resonance. is something that as a podcast is right, exploring resonance, there is a resonance that is connecting with you that is something that is resonating within you that can recognize it. I've had it happen many times in Nebraska when I was leaving home in Nebraska.

Faten Qalawi (1:17:53)
Resonance. Yeah.

Elizabeth Sabet (1:18:12)
we were driving through the fields headed to the airport and it was calling me, that particular area was calling me like, don't leave, don't leave. Why? Why did it not want me to leave? it's not my home home where I live anymore, but it was, but what was it of me that it was not wanting me to leave? That it was, what was the land wanting from me? ⁓

There's things, you the elementals, we call them the elemental spirits in the land. The elements of the land, you know, are calling to you. I've had it happen with trees and with the sun and different aspects, you know. Sometimes the land is needing love and healing. Sometimes it's just needing that light. Sometimes it's just simply an exchange of appreciation.

Mm-hmm, many reasons.

Faten Qalawi (1:19:07)
thinking sometimes maybe I needed something and the land picked up that there is something still that needs that I needed and then it's asking me to stay there so that my needs are met. that's why I feel like it's a reciprocal, know, and it's a beautiful relationship. It's of a different type. That's the original.

the original relationship, it supports me and I support it back. And then there is the joy of being there, just the joy of being there. And that's why I feel like, okay, so how do we determine what place is home and where does it begin? if a society is attuned, is built,

on this kind of attunement, refined listening, then a certain society or a community that's going to be on that spot of land is going to be automatically in resonance and in harmony because it has stipulated already, it's kind of the land has chosen the people that's going to be on it.

where does the choice start? That's what I'm trying to say. And how do we make that choice?

Elizabeth Sabet (1:20:34)
Yeah, is it the chicken or the egg? Is it the land or the people?

Faten Qalawi (1:20:38)
Yeah.

⁓

Elizabeth Sabet (1:20:40)
Yes.

Edward Wertz (1:20:44)
I feel like we've had several avenues that we could go even deeper on. Unfortunately, we've been here for a good hour and a half recording. So I think we'll wrap it up here and we'll figure out what the next conversation is going to be about. This has been amazing. I love you all. And we're circling the topics that are near and dear to my heart. ⁓

finding that open community that is oriented towards facilitating a deeper listening to the land and to each other is what my spirit creates.

Faten Qalawi (1:21:25)
Beautiful.

Bye, thank you so much.

Elizabeth Sabet (1:21:32)
Yes, thank you so much.

Faten Qalawi (1:21:34)
Choosing this topic.

Thank you all. It was beautiful.

Edward Wertz (1:21:42)
Let

all of us bring to the table our spirits.