At this most unusual time, when we are being forced to spend even more time at home, it seems apt to stop and reflect on the question:

What does “home” mean for you?

The home we talk about when we discuss “feeling at home” or “making ourselves at home”, “home truths” or “home being where the heart is” is more than just the shell of a building and more than the individual things we surround ourselves with.

It is a construct, a feeling, almost a sense of re-membering; a rebuilding of an atmosphere, constructed by the gathering together, and layering, of all of the elements with which we choose to feather our individual nest. Home is a space which strikes a chord in our soul memory. When we work consciously to create this, our home enfolds us in a bear hug of comfort, like a warm bath, it makes us exhale, relax, and release some of the tensions of the outside world.

Our home is our outer skin, an outward expression of what is going on inside us. We can look around, taking in the colours, patterns and imagery we have surrounded ourselves with, and ask ourselves; what is my home reflecting back to me?

In the creation of a true home for ourselves to “belong” in, we can explore how the colour, shape, scent, material finishes and the “atmosphere” of a space conspire to provide an individual “personality”. We are in close relationship with our homes, whether we are even conscious of that relationship or not. We are not separate from our environments, or for that matter, from each other. Our buildings are an extension of ourselves. Some would say that our surroundings are a metaphor for all that is going on inside us, mirroring our inner-most energy signature back to us, giving us the opportunity to work towards balance inside and out.

As Winston Churchill said “we shape our buildings and thereafter they shape us”.