HAUM

The term HAUM came to me in a vision during a shamanic journey.  The concept behind it had been calling to me for several years before. It is a thought at the heart of my own passion and explorations around intentional community. Over the past few years, I have had the opportunity to experience gatherings of Rainbow Family and Burners (Burning Man Types). When entering the temporary utopian villages of either of these communities, new comers are greeted with many smiles, hugs, and “Welcome Home!”.

I felt a bit strange hearing this for the first time, and yet it fit. There is a feeling, and energy that goes with it. There is a culture at work here offering love, acceptance, and nurturing support for you exactly as you are right here in this moment and simultaneously encouraging you to blossom into whatever you choose to be. We are welcome. We are wanted. We are family. We come together as wonderfully unique individuals, yet recognize that together we are one. We are home.

Aum is an alternate and, for me, a preferable spelling of the chant Om of hindu origin. I prefer the three letter spelling as the chant has been described to me as three syllables with the silence between adding a fourth that completes an unending circle with meaning very similar to the four directions or medicine wheel of other traditions:  A – birth, beginning, opening blossoming, becoming; U – Life, movement, expression, being; M – Closure, completion, rest, integration, contraction, returning; Silence – Brahman, the ultimate, unchanging reality that transcends space and time, the infinite everythingness and nothingness from which all is formed and to which all returns, in which all exists and all is one.  Aum has been described as the word of God, the energy that continually creates, destroys, and recreates the universe. It is simultaneously all that is and the individual fire or soul that animates each of us.

HAUM is the Platonic archetype of home. It is a place and a feeling that I believe most of us recognize and feel drawn to, even those of us who have never experienced anything like a proper home. HAUM is a place of rest, rejuvenation, safety, nurturing support. HAUM is the place where we are all one, yet are supported and encouraged to explore our own path and unique individuality. HAUM is a place that we carry within us, that may be accessed through meditation, slowing down, listening, appreciating. HAUM is where the heart is. HAUM may also be physical spaces, sacred containers where intentional family come with open hearts to support each other, love each other, create, and have fun.

WELCOME HAUM!