Illuminating your experience – in the form of what you create.

www.homesouls.com The secret of home

What you see around you is a reflection of who you are.

So create the change you want to see in the world.

Paint your picture – your home is your canvas.

Walk your talk – your life is your journey home.

How do you colour your life ?

We colour our lives in different ways – through different coloured lenses we perceive the world. Some may see through rose-coloured glass, taking an optimistic view, seeing the happy side of life, or seeing things the way they want them to be. Some colour it green with envy, blue with melancholy, pristine white and holier-than-thou, or black with sombre mood.

There are so many moods through which we can filter our experience and so many colours with which one could choose to paint the scene. The way you see and how you filter is entirely up to you. Colour your world the way you want it to be. Let every aspect of interior design become a statement of intent and a request for something special in your life.

The homesouls journey is illuminating; it begins at home with who you are and how you place yourself amongst your things. All around you life is coloured in a beautiful way. You may not see it; it may not appear that way from your point of view. Looks can be deceptive, for beauty touches the heart – it needn’t be appealing to the eye. Our homes need not be pictorially beautiful, aesthetically pleasing and squeaky clean. Our homes are mirrors of ourselves.

Put your heart into this work

In my last two blogs on ‘Life Quotes’ and ‘Positive Words’ I encouraged you to see your home in a new way and to form an intention illuminating what you really want in life. Actions speak louder than words, so now it is time to create the change you want to see in your life.

Put your heart into this work, for whatever you put into it will motivate the outcome.

To reconstruct symbolically a part of your life that needs rebuilding, maintenance or repair, first you need to prepare your space: Clear the site, get rid of the clutter and clean it. You have to make some room for something new to enter. Your preparations welcome the new.

Letting go of clutter

We are all attached to everything we own: every piece of paper, every book and every object, all the things we have stored up in the attic or in the garage and the spare room, and all the presents we feel obliged to keep. Our attachments are illuminating; they are like threads connecting us to the people, places and things that form the context of our lives. Too many attachments are like overgrown brambles sucking nourishment from fertile ground. Freed from these attachments we feel a sense of release, a feeling of lightness accompanies the clearing process.

On the other hand too much order can undermine creativity; becoming obsessive and blocking the flow that leads to flowering. Beauty, it seems, will flower in chaos, but there is a time for flowering and a time for clearing away, as nature shows us in the summer and the fall.

I don’t pay much attention to the fashion police, or the beautiful body and beautiful home magazines. The gloss is pulled over the designer’s eye, this veil of illusion makes them blind, and the blind lead the blind in this designer-land of little substance.

Interior design can be a call for what you really want in life.

I look beyond the surface in search of beauty and poetry. The Welsh poet Dylan Thomas knew this well, throughout his life he drew inspiration from his hometown Swansea, the place he called his “ugly lovely town”. In Swansea I have seen a womans passion through her window – sex and sadness share her story, and other Swansea peeps have been generous with their views.

In its ugliness and its loveliness your home can nourish your life. The healing process is the same as the creative process. Engaged in the act of creation we seem at first to make a mess, and when the body is healing the symptoms often get worse before the condition gets better. A similar thing happens at home when we clear our space.

My book ‘The Secret of Home’ is not about design; it is a book about entering your story, reading your home, and creating the changes that you want in your life. So In this homesouls work there is no prescription – the power for change lives with you:

Choose the qualities of design that best support your issues?

Consider what atmosphere do you want to create?

Decide what story you want to tell?

Illuminating your experience so that meaning shines through in the form of what you do.

Whatever you do, make it glorious, for your acts of creation are everyday prayers.

Lindsay Halton, Architect – Author – Guide

Passion, Motherhood and Health

www.homesouls.com  The secret of home

I was there to look at the window, and I only had 30 minutes to do this peep with Lee, but it was the fireplace, not the window, that attracted my attention. On the mantle above the hearth was the word ‘home’, in big wooden letters; I note the Fire wall is red, and ask Lee about her choice of paint; she said: “both me and my daughter got sick when my husband went to get the paint” – This was serious, because her son’s immune system is compromised, and the rest of the family have to be very careful not to get ill.

I noticed that the key beneath the letter E was broken, and she said she took it back to the shop, but they did not have another to replace it with, also that the door lock forming the O of ‘home’ was in the shape of a heart, and I asked about this. She pointed to another heart at the window, and said: “My husband said – ‘you are obsessed with hearts at the moment‘ – I had not even realised I was doing it, but I have got one in each window around the house. I had been buying so many hearts (over the past 6 months) for the windows.”

 

I asked her what they mean to her. She said just the normal things like; “Love, it is feminine; women tend to go for curves – probably a love theme”. 

I asked about the plant in the window, and she said “it is a Mexican fortune tree”. Her husband wanted a plant for the window; “that was his thing, but we could not agree on one – this tree was the easiest to find; we both really liked it”, and she showed me how healthy it is with new leaves shooting out “it is thriving”. My husband said: “that’s a really healthy plant that is”.

 

“I never liked this room. The TV was in the bay window, and we had an electric fire on the wall. … Now it is the Adult Room”.

She had not realised the significance of her words, nor her sub-conscious choices; When health was such an issue, it was important to choose a healthy and thriving plant, and one that even represents good fortune.
I returned to the image of the hearts, and said that ‘heart’ sounds like ‘hearth’, it has a Fire quality. She told me how they unblocked the old fire and pulled out lots of rubble; it felt like they had released something in doing that. Her husband said the space felt healthier because of it. So I asked what the hearts are about. She had not given them any thought before, but her knowing burst forward, saying; “it is about the children” (that she had lost four children at birth), but then she said:

“It is really my role as a wife. For couples that struggle with infertility, the sexual relationship becomes quite mechanical and empty really. Can be a case that you have to have sex because you are ovulating, and then at the end of the month, it is the feeling that I went through all of that, but for what? It is hard to recover from – where is the passion?….. Most people with kids are tired; but when you are classed as infertile, it is a problem that you really have to work through in the end… So that is probably why the Fire came out…. Isn’t it?”

Following the consultation I received this email from Lee to share:

I’ve been thinking about the whole ‘passion’ issue since you left and it’s more than the left over scarring from it being mechanical for so long. The ‘act’ was tied up with grief and loss for so long, I think that has left its mark. In order to protect ourselves we naturally move away from things that cause us pain … for so long I couldn’t move away from it because we had to do it to have a baby. But now our family is complete, deep down I think a protective barrier has come up – the passion has been pushed down to protect myself from the feelings of loss. But at the same time, the woman in me (not the mother) is trying to get out and relight the fire.

The work on that window is not complete, they are about to purchase blinds, which will mean the heart will be taken down. So now it is time for Lee and her husband to consider whether they will replace it, and what they will replace it with. They might also consider the broken key above the fire and under the letter E of home. Perhaps this is an opportunity to focus on what keys and home mean to them, and what they might do about the broken one. What do you think? I would be happy to pass on any thoughts and comments to Lee.

Lindsay
www.homesouls.com  The secret of home

 

Such a beautiful thing

www.homesouls.com  The secret of home

Shellie reminds me that her three year old son will be present on the day that I visit, and asks; does this matter? On the day, and in the true spirit of a three year old, he makes his presence know to me. I know that whatever grand, or deep, or big ideas that we might have, our children will always bring us back to the present.

 

I ask Shellie to choose a window: “It is difficult to choose between them – one in the attic – our child free space where we do our work….. normally a place where I am contemplating objects yet there is a lot going on outside, so I am always aware of sounds and people and cars outside – but I am doing my work…. And the one in the back room; this is where I sit myself when I am doing my sewing….. I am seeing the changes here – dramatically/drastically here…… I define my work as; drawing, textiles, and making – The materiality of meaning that comes through these.”
“I always end up taking stuff from here up to the attic window to contemplate it.”

 

 

At the attic window, the objects she made were inspired by the shape of the arch window, although miniaturised. Her intention is to place these objects on a mirror, that; “they are only ever complete when there is a reflection underneath them.”

I tell her that my role is simply to mirror what she says to me, and I will do something very significant; that whatever she says to me about her home, I will repeat to her as a statement about her life.
I ask her to look out the window and tell me what she sees: “The view sums up Uplands in Swansea, it is a real mix of people – students and residents…. A sense of meaning that there is a real hive of people, and meaning, and architectural perspectives – an honest reflection; it feels quite real.”

 

 

I note down everything that she says – I note that she has used the word ‘Hive’, and I see that there is a dead Bee in a box beneath the window. I ask her about the bee. It died there 2 days before; “I saw that Bee had died – such a beautiful thing. It kind of sums up our existence. It felt symbolic or significant that it should sit there now”.

 

 

I ask her whether she realised that she used the word ‘Hive’ in the context of where she is living. That word and the bee would have past unnoticed, if I had not reflected upon it – Often we have blind spots, we do not see what is closest to us, and we do not here the echo of our own words. She added: “being in this place I feel that when I am sat here I have got this window to the world, being in the middle of something, but also being alone”

What strikes me about Shellie’s house is the absence of artwork on the walls; the walls are stripped bare and left blank, not so much as a blank canvas waiting for surface pattern or decoration to be applied, but with more intention; white paper sheets cover the walls in places like a patchwork quilt, concealing an exploration into colour that prompts some future choices to be made. Then this focuses my attention to the windows – by contrast, these are detailed places – places of more attention.

I offered the abstract: The Bee – to be – being. And she said:
“Being a part of something – doing work is doing life – embracing those moments when you are in that space” – ‘To be’.  The attic window is her being space. And what a gift the humble Bee brought to that space, and to that view.

My next conversation was with Caroline at the Mission gallery – This hive of people; the citizens, the peeps, create a rich tapestry – What if we were to close the downtown area for just one day, and give the office workers a coloured thread to go home with, connected at one end to their office place. Give the shop workers another colour and the shoppers one too. And what of the homeless and the street people, let’s give them a coloured thread; attach their threads to their starting place at the dawn of day, then take an aerial view to map their paths – How much might this tell us about the city; about the lines and threads that we never see, about the interconnections, proximities, and commonalities that route our daily lives, that connect one citizen to another?

Let me know if you think this is a good idea. Lindsay Halton
www.homesouls.com

Looking backwards as well as forwards.

www.homesouls.com  The secret of home

My next invitation was to peep with Gordon, a retired gentleman, with a keen interest in the city; in both its past and its future, and fortunate at his time of life to live in a place that is central to all that the city has to offer. In Estate Agent speak; I suppose his place would be termed a ‘penthouse’, but this term seems so grand and too elevated – His is not a house but a home, and clearly not chosen for prestige, but instead for its views and proximity to the inner life of the city.

I arrive at an exclusive location, and wonder is there a janitor, or a concierge, to meet me at the threshold. But no, the experience I am about to have is down to earth – I call Gordon via the intercom, and he comes down to welcome me in, to meet me at the threshold, where his private life meets the street. My mind makes abstract connections; from Janitor to Janus ( A Roman God, and guardian of the threshold) – he who looks back as well as forward.

We elevate to the top floor, lifted to his personal entrance, at which he presents me with two views, and states his preference: “The one at back, is the Swansea for me; it is the colours, the rhythm, the history, the character on that hill”. So we go to see that first. I notice that atop the hill, at ‘townhill’, are the ‘homes for heroes’ – That social housing programme after the war was so generous. The council gave its tenants that crowning view over the city and the bay.

Gordon looks backward as well as forward, with more life behind him than there is in front of him now; he enjoys the view back the most. Looking back upon the city from this lofty view we see the hills of houses, tapestries of windows and roofs; looking best in the sunshine when the patterns and colours paint the loveliest picture.

He says of his two views: “past and present looking outwards – essentially pre-war and post war… the city lost itself – it got destroyed, but there is a latent memory of the architecture of the city, that has never been recovered…. “

Then looking forward, out of his front windows over the Bay he said: “The best that has happened to Swansea is that view out of that window (the marina development)… but it could have been a lot better…….. I am interested in how we are rebuilding the city… the future of the city….. It is about the things we see out that window – the past, the present, the future, the homes”.

In the abstract, a rear view mirror comes to mind- In looking back we can see where we have come from, the places where we have been, and there are memories. But Gordon does not talk nostalgically he is well placed in the present, seems like a man who has arrived, and has a voice to speak out. He says: “At front is the new Swansea, and change, that is what is outside the window ….. It is the richness of culture, nature, the future – with the children we have got it all!” And being happy in his present; the stuff of life is in his window – not just the bigger picture, but also in the toys of grandchildren and the art objects that share his view.

He comments on a crescent of houses at Trawler Road; What a missed opportunity – how much better the Georgians or the Victorians would have handled that, they would have been more generous, they would have offered more to the street; at least more doors, more thresholds where interior and street life could meet, where there could be dialogue, where inside could spill into outside, where people could exchange more views.

“The windows talk to the street, they are a part of what makes a street safe….. The windows and doors talk to the street, they engage with the street, they say ‘I am Here’. There is a bit of an invitation from the windows“. So the threshold to him is important: “You can judge architecture by what is happening at ground level, when you walk along the road….. there is a street life and there is a private life – there are characters you might enjoy and engage with on the street, but you would not invite them into your home”.

Buttons, numbers and codes presented barriers to my entry. My exit is much simpler; I descend, and with a few door clicks my passage is clear to leave. Through glass and concrete and stone, my place once more is on the street. So this is the new way to live in Swansea – But is it generous? Did the planners, designers and developers in their contemplation, look backwards as well as forwards, did they consider our thresholds, and how generous were they being?

Please let me know what you look forward to ?  Lindsay

Through the lives of others – Into me I see

The lives of others can be like mirrors; what do you see in them? It can help to hear about other people’s lives. So even though experts say that people want to read a blog that is 80% about them, what I have to say next is a peep about me – it is personal, and I hope it will be helpful for you.

I did three peep workshops over the past two weeks. In Cardiff and Swansea I got people to pair up and consider their windows; with an odd number in one of the Swansea workshops, I paired up with a young lady called Rachel, and she  insisted that I take a look at one of my own windows. So I chose my Study window.

The following week just as I was preparing for the Cardiff workshop, my Study window blew violently open and the key snapped in the lock. Then in the workshop later that day, I used a chance method (Glass Runes) for people to choose a window to look at. By chance, the window that came up for me was once again the Study.

In Swansea, I had said the following about my window:

“Side glimpses (not main view out) so it is inward looking, good light. Usually the messiest window in the house – I rarely see what is on the sill.”

After Cardiff I thought about it some more; What might my study window mirror about my life at the moment?

In my Study, I rarely look up, and I rarely look out of that window. The violent way that the window blew open, so the wind and rain blew in and the key snapped, was shocking; it forced me to look at the view. I long to spend more time outside – My architecture work has been so busy this year.

Not noticing what is on my own window – the window that I am closest to; I recall the old adage of the cobbler’s shoes, and I pause to take a look at my own life.

In the Cardiff Workshop, we moved on to do a ‘homesouls Oracle’ reading as a reflection of what is happening in these window areas of our lives.

The homesouls Oracle reading for me was “Service through Wisdom”, and it went on to say:

“…….Cultivate the wisdom to serve a community of interest in which you have a common bond……. Cultivating the wisdom to help others requires dedication to the development of one’s own character”.

Sometimes we do not see what is closest to us: My Study window blowing open reflects what I really want; to spend more time outside working on my land, to go to the beach more, to do more Aikido, to dance more, and to take more holidays. Spend less time doing architecture, and more time doing homesouls work, and the type of peeps work that helps others to see their homes as a mirror of Self.

So thanks Rachel, for making me look at my window – I just booked a holiday, I did the garden and went to the beach with Jackie yesterday, and I am going to  Aikido tonight.

That’s a wonderful view!

Lindsay Halton

A wonderful view

I listened and looked with all my attention when Glenys Cour shared her view. She has nine decades of life experience, and the grace and clarity to make you feel at home in her presence,  so now I have this to share with you:

An accomplished artist and still at work every day, she took time out to welcome me into her home.

And out of all the things she might remember from many years ago, this is what came to mind, for her to share with me:

“All the things that people said are in the air, and the possibility of sometime everything coming back – being heard”.

What if this is true? … That words are held in the air, not affected by the vagaries of time, unknowingly we download them, they are with us, but without ownership, simply passing through us – in time – along our storyline.

So what then of the poet, the artist, the architect; are these not creators and inventors making new impressions? Or are they explorers and discoverers; vessels for the ugly and the lovely to leave their marks once again.

And of the vessels are they half empty or half full? The content and the potential may be the same; but there are different ways of seeing them.

And so on to my second Swansea peep of that day: I visited Sandra after Glenys, perhaps 50 years her Junior, with so much life ahead of her, and on her kitchen window were stacked 15 empty pots. She called them:

“Sadly empty vases”,

…… “I tend to hoard stuff, which then becomes junk; I don’t know if that is the story of my life”.

So I asked; what will you do with these pots now? If this reflection is an image of the way you see your world, then how would you change that view? If life’s story is held in words and stuff, then what power is in the hands of the architect and the poet, and what potential for us all to work this storyline!

• A window invites poetic reflection.
• A window is an invitation.
• A window tells a story.
• A window is about views.
• A window is a threshold through which our lives meet.

http://www.homesouls.com/blog/2014/03/civic-2014-swansea-peeps-event/

Lindsay Halton

The Secret of Home

 

My next peep may be at Mumbles

Glenys has invited me to share her wonderful view.

I look forward to visiting some more windows

The dreams of yesterday are the eyes of tomorrow.

The dreams of yesterday are the eyes of tomorrow.

Taking a simplistic view I will say that the city of tomorrow is shaped by the children of today, and today’s children are shaped by the adults. So all of us are the architects of our future.

Dylan Thomas saw the Ugly and the lovely in Swansea town long before it was bombed in WW2. Through little boy’s eyes, he looked out through bedroom windows and saw the ugly on one side and the lovely on the other.

We continue to share the ugly and the lovely view – in fact we are all just that – both ugly and lovely – We are complex.

When I ask people to look out their windows, and what do they see? I am asking for a perspective on life. Two people might see different things, and what they say, reveals as much about them as about what is out there.

Swansea City centre was shaped by the Second World War – it was bombed during the Blitz, by the Luftwaffe under the command of Adolf Hitler.

Hitler as a child was obsessed with ‘Parsifal’ – the blameless fool, the champion of the Holy Grail, and the healer of the wounded King. And as the leader of the Third Reich the image of Parsifal and the image of the Fuhrer became enmeshed.

The children of today walk down Swansea Kingsway, rebuilt after the war – Were it not for Hitler their feet would be treading on different ground and their eyes would perceive different sites.

The psychologist Karl Jung wrote about many complexes; he believed it perfectly normal to have ‘complexes’, because everyone has emotional experiences that affect the psyche. These experiences can bring comfort, and they also bring pain: Hitler’s father was brutal to him, and like Parsifal, he lost his father at an early age, Jung reacted to his father’s views, and Dylan Thomas longed for his father’s approval.

The experiences of these men as children shaped their later work; they shaped the world as we know it.

It is our views that shape the world; the planners and the politicians make decisions about our cities, but what were they thinking long before they rose to those positions? And what will our children think when they take their place?

So when you look out of your window, what do you see? Is it ugly or is it lovely? The way you see the world is the way it is – change your view, then your experience will change too.

Apparently the Opera ‘Parsifal’ by Wagner was conceived on a Good-Friday.

On Easter Sunday children all over Wales will be searching for Easter Eggs. The eggs are a symbol or a promise of ‘new birth’, the festival became a Christian one; celebrating the resurrection of Christ, but its origin was pagan; coming from Germany and the Goddess ‘Eostra’, the goddess of renewal and fertility, her symbol was the Hare.

So why not take a look out of a window over the holiday, and consider your view?

 

Lindsay Halton, Swansea Peeps – www.homesouls.com

Synchronicity and the window of time

For anyone interested in synchronicity this was an amazing day… Strange but true: ” A childhood mantra of the shipping news – and all is safe and well”.

First a private look and a secret uncovered at Dylan Thomas birth house, where the ugly and the lovely shaped his childhood view, then onto the opening of Civic 2014 and my Swansea peeps exhibition, at the Mission Gallery, where a few people shared their views with me:

The first saw Swansea as a divided City, the second enjoyed a colourful view of people passing by – dressed like a Dragon, Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee, and a man on a one wheel bike. These are characters that frequently pass-by her window on the way to the Mumbles shore. Finally ‘Angela’ the artist who will occupy the gallery space after me came to say hello; and what seemed so odd at the time was later to reveal a bit of magic in that day:

Her next art work was to be a great big Knitted piece, and she had just finished reading her last knitted piece in the voice of the shipping forecast:

‘ Lands End to St. David’s Head… 3 to 4…fair or good…becoming variable…’ I doubt she used those words, but certainly the tone – Strange but true!

Stranger still that one hour later I was in a North Gower house to do my first Swansea peep consultation. My subject was Kate and her Study window: I asked the significance of the map on the window. It was a map of the shipping forecast, and her father had drawn it, he recently passed away and this was her treasured item – As children when they were all just about to sit down for tea, the shipping forecast would come on….

“it made a real connection – I was a little girl in a safe family…. Listening to it I am really glad to be inside and safe”.

It’s been months since I heard the shipping forecast, and usually it would not interest me; then to hear it mentioned twice within one hour and in the context of peeps-windows – it caught my attention:

Two women connected by a one hour window in time and through a Swansea peep at windows. Angela wants to engage people through the art of knitting, and whilst getting people to pick up the thread that went before, the threads of story are connected. Kate has experienced loss and looking back to a place and time when she felt safe and well; she now wants to learn to thread together the knitting that she has made that came from garments worn by her mother and her grandmother.

Is this coincidence or is it synchronicity? Are we three following  storylines that  joined in this window of time? And should Angela and Kate meet to join these threads?

I think so!  What do you think?