Recently, on Instagram, I saw a woman being scoffed at for her entrepreneurial venture as a baby naming consultant. The role she has crafted for herself is that of a guide, someone to lead families through the process of naming the newest member in an intentional way.
I don’t yet know how I feel about commodifying this personal process, but I do understand how much pressure can accumulate when faced with the responsibility of naming, be it a business or a baby.
So what does Our Temenos mean?
At the heart of our work is the foundational element of sanctuary. We are designing spaces that people can relax in, create from and grow into. We bring with us our underappreciated kin, plants full of forgotten magic and medicine. They melt into our subconscious and fold into our daily routines, silently repairing the cracks inside of us. I’ve had exactly this experience through gardening and have tended to my own trauma through the soil. As a child, I would move through pastures, forests, backstreets and creeks all with the same ease. Slowly gathering the ingredients needed for my potions, spells I was casting to get me far away from where I was, spells that would transform my surroundings.
And they worked. They may have taken 20 years but the plants that I poured my heart out to, helped me to transform my life. A tiny alchemist, I spoke power into seeds that carried my dreams and intentions away on the wind and our labor bore fruit decades later. The soil transmuted a beginning full of pain and darkness into a life full of art and beauty.
While working in Cody, Wyoming, I had the rare and absolute pleasure of visiting the New Mount Carmel Monastery. For me, this was a pilgrimage in so many ways, a journey to a church at the foot of a much older sacred being. My breath caught in my chest as I laid eyes on the monastery, rising out of the bosom of the mountains. An ambitious piece of architecture that the monks were building by hand— transforming their own sweat, tears and pain into a jaw dropping work of art and devotion — reminding me what a gift it is to go through such a process. How lucky I am to access such catharsis on a regular basis and to facilitate the process for others by bringing them closer to the earth! I spoke with the monks for hours about their work, mine and the intersection of art and spirit before leaving laden with gifts including a full heart, a five pound bag of their coffee beans, and a renewed commitment to becoming more myself than I’d ever been before.
Mystic Monks
Master craftsmen and men of the order standing in front of their magnum opus.
This change was one of many that felt so much safer in the midst of a pandemic. The catalyst of 2020 reminded me of the power of co-creation, the power of following one’s intuition. Carl Jung referred to the temenos as a liminal space, a sacred point of engagement between an individual and their shadow. A place that must remain protected from outside influence so that individuation, or the birth of one’s true self, can occur. In Jungian psychology, individuation is in service to the community and prevents default to the herd mentality. At the age of 30, I needed to continue individuating, I needed to remind myself of that which sets me apart. And when I couldn’t remind myself, the divine magic of the unseen universe did so.
We look forward to living up to our name, as we design, build and cultivate community in beautiful, ecologically functional sanctuaries where you all can become your truer, wilder selves.
With love,
Rosemarie
