Over the next couple of months, I will be writing about the Four Realms of Existence and how we experience ourselves as sovereign in each one.
Let me tell you the names of the Four Realms of Existence:
The Realm of Space,
The Realm of Time,
The Realm of Relativity, &
The Realm of Creativity.
How do we define a realm? Here is what the dictionary says:
- A realm is a kingdom or
- A field or domain of activity or interest.
We need to see and feel each realm as a kingdom AND a field of activity ideally designed and “ruled” by Self. Each realm has a power and a glory. Each realm has a purpose, responsibilities and conflicts. Each of us evolves a unique way of dwelling in each realm.
- Space becomes our own space because we have a physical body of size, form, weight and appearance.
- Time becomes our own time because we have a life/etheric body with flowing chemicals, pulsing rhythms and unfolding stories, creative dreams and cherished memories.
- Relativity becomes our own relativity because we have a soul/astral body of perceptions, thoughts, feelings, and intentions that constantly change perspective, deepen understanding and lead to differing possibilities.
- Creativity becomes our own absolute because we have a spirit, a kernel of the Divine living in the experience of I AM.
The more I reflect on these four realms the more I find an inner reality that I can perceive, understand and consciously claim. I feel more of a creative control and equanimity in each realm. My sense of self in each realm is far from perfect or happy, but I feel a growing grounded calm and elegant sovereignty when I focus on my activities within each realm.
Through my sovereignty I respond more than I react. It is import to distinguish between reacting and responding: reaction is unthinking as it is connected to survival and when a bear is running toward you you don’t want to stop and think. Response has a sense of calm choice, a sense that it comes from a place of sovereignty.
Researching and Reflecting on
Your Existence in Each Realm
I will describe and explore each realm offering imaginations of the challenges and gifts of each one. Do the research and do the reflection and you will know yourself so much better! You will dwell in each realm with so much more freedom.
With each realm notice the words or phrases that come to mind. I suggest you make a list of these words and phrases and reflect on your own experience of them. Journal, write a poem, create a collage…follow your inspiration. It is also fun and illuminating to read the words aloud one at a time at dinner and see how your family or friends relate and describe their sense of it.
As I have been contemplating each realm, I am amazed at how much I am learning about myself and how I am able to name my strengths and weaknesses in each. I see that we need a sense of sovereignty in each one.
You may want to go back to the post on sovereignty and begin by contemplating all the ways sovereignty can be experienced. Each experience of sovereignty is like a star shining in the cosmos of your soul. Contemplate this.
PS: This is a long post…and not long enough to share all my thoughts and experience on sovereignty and space. I do hope it is a just right dose of inspiration for you.
The First Realm: Space
We will begin with Space.This is the realm of visibility and appearances, measurements and boundaries, order and placement, things and possessions, colors and shapes, light and shadows.
How sovereign are you within your realm of space ?
Look around you! What do you see? Look at yourself in the mirror! What do you see? Everything you see is spatial. How do you like what you see? Does what you see give you pleasure and meaning? Does it reflect your spatial needs? How sovereign are you in this realm?
We see containers…like walls, baskets, glasses, closets, tabletops, handbags. Actually, we can think of rooms as containers of activities (that take place in time) and all the objects needed for an activity. I have a bedroom that contains my bed and a ton of stuff.
Reach out and touch anything and everything. Everything you touch is spatial because there is a distance that can be measured between you and the object. When you pet your dog, you can thank the realm of space.
If I stand out, I am in the realm of spatial consciousness. If I hide…if I jump to a conclusion… I am using spatial language.
If I believe in Heaven or Hell, I am seeing them as places and spaces.
Move yourself or any object. Everything you move is spatial.
We have skin so we can have a self in space: inner space and outer space. Skin is a boundary and it shapes our personal, physical container, territory or body. If you were a mollusk, you would also have a shell. If you were a porcupine you would have needles. If you were a tree you would have bark. What are you learning about your self, your soul and your sovereignty when you look at the skin of your space?
How much space do you need to feel safe, contained, expansive, grand, hidden, seen, vulnerable? What experience do you have of invasion, exposure, suffocation, disappearance, captivity, imprisonment, or contraction. All states of the spatial self.
What do you want your spatial experiences and existence to be? What do you want it to look like? (Appearance only exists in space. ) These are questions for your sovereign self…you get to rule your space and all your spatial states.
Placement and Order
There is something about placement and order that feels so inspiring to me. They are central elements of design. Visually, they are key to our sense of beauty and proportion and contrast.
Placement can create a jungle or a desert of great beauty and order. Do you collect lots of things and design a jungle of shapes, sizes, textures and colors? Or do you feel more comfortable with few things and lots of empty space? Sovereignty in space means you are making choices based on your own needs, desires, aesthetics and morality.
I once told a client who felt she was a little OCD around placing objects in her home that she might consider it placement meditation, an act of reverence for the place and space of an object. When I was an interior designer I loved designing the placement of furniture and hanging the art. It was a sacred deed to bring order and beauty to the home of a client. In a way that reflected who they were…I was their servant, not their design guru.
Sometimes in the realm of my space, I lose order and create mess, I tend to feel shame at the image and self-disgust at my lack of will and I will take flight or freeze. I become a victim of my space. This deserves reflection and wonder…not judgment.
I have the least sovereignty when it comes to my clothes, my papers and my refrigerator. I reign over furniture and art. But my clothes and my bedroom, my papers and my office, and my refrigerator and my food I hold dark shadowy feelings about, no sparks of joy or calm. I can’t maintain (maintaining is a time function!) order or placement. I have sovereign space for my clothes but I realize I have no sovereignty over the items of clothing. I don’t know that they reflect a sovereign style that is mine. (Style is about space.)
Emptiness & Spaciousness
The void is essential. An expanse of space that has no solids. The betweenness of things can be sweet space, the space of possibilities and the home of the unborn. Yes, I think of the womb waiting for the growing visitor. But I also think of empty space as visually undemanding and comforting.
Look around your spaces and focus on the empty spaces. Nothing to be arranged or ordered or rescued from mess and too much. What is sovereignty in emptiness for you? Do you need more emptiness in your spaces…or less?
Don’t laugh…my favorite empty space in my life is my bathtub. It always lies empty waiting for the warm water and me.
I am also realizing that I have some beautiful ceramic and wooden bowls that I fill up with plants or tumbled stones. Why don’t I let these beautiful vessels live in their emptiness??? Today I will empty one and let it be sacred, beautiful and true to its form. I emptied my beautiful wooden bowl and took the photo above. I didn’t buy it to fill it up. I bought the exquisite juxtaposition of the void of the half-sphere of the bowl and the rough, uneven edges, but I fill it with three tumbled rose-quartz stones. No more…my spatial sovereignty celebrates the beauty of the emptiness.
Naming Your Spaces
Naming sets a mood, describes a function and acknowledges ownership. A room of my own, a home of my own. What space do you have that is your own? Your sovereign space!
Some names that bring a feeling of spirit for me: sanctuary, altar, prayer rug, grove, spring, haven, grave, chalice, well. What are yours?
If you could name all your rooms, names that had a sense of each room’s function and mood, what would you name them? I am sitting in my office right now but if I were to give it a name it would be the My Center of Contribution. My bedroom the Room of Peace and Restoration. Someone else might call it their Den of Dreams. My living room is my Place of Warm Encounter (it is also my yoga studio – The Studio of a Thousand Sighs).
Naming is a sovereign act. Choose names for your spaces that inspire the activity that lives and dwells in them. But don’t be afraid of having fun with naming…the gods love laughter.
Awakening Sovereignty in the Realm of Space
Choose a small space and make it sovereign. This might mean you choose to leave it empty or it might mean that you fill it up and make an arrangement of things. What’s important is your experience of sovereignty. Just take a baby step toward sovereignty in space.
BTW, if you have a need for extreme order, that is not sovereignty. Sovereignty always arises out of freedom, never out of compulsion. Sovereignty is not control.
You might want to take a picture of a room or a table a drawer or a garden and print it. Paste it in your journal and begin writing about your thoughts and feelings about all the things in that space, the order, the emptiness, and anything else that surfaces. If you do this a couple of times you will begin to know yourself as a being existing in space. This post intends to help you both discover and curate the spaces of your existence.
