Peace, Joy & Enchantment
Add your own modern hierophany; reminders at Work, of Home.
Piles of figurines line the floor creating a village. The imagination playing a role in their lives, I had previously missed. Collectibles mix and matched by my girls' minds, a marbled combination of swirling characters and toy brands like a splattered-colored MOMA painting. The miniature scene on the floral carpet, makes no logical sense to me. But then again, it’s not supposed to.
Standing nearby, taking snack requests, my breath quickens with excitement, a shrine of their making is taking shape. Having finished the chapter titled ‘hierophany’ in Enchantment, Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age, by Katherine May, I’m blown away by significance of the girls using of their favorite things from their youngest years to create a diorama they keep begging me not to move or take apart. This all has deep meaning to them although neither girl can explain the meaning to them.
Hierophany is defined as a sacred object(s) collected and used for a greater connection to a higher purpose.
Not everyone has collections of trinkets saved from their first years of toddler playing but when I started working I covered my desk in photos of friends, family and my alma mater. The tan cubicles and, later, my brown walled offices necessitated personal decor, getting myself to Fridays when the work was left behind to play and be with my loved ones. I moved silver braided frames from state to state, office to office with memories dotting lines of my life outside of work.
Today, we rarely lug important framed photos in our work bags to our home office to our conferences. Our phones hold pics, never printed, often buried in a series of texts. Even our homes have been Kundo’ed, collectibles forgotten in small home offices in corners of bedrooms or makeshift closets. Empty workspaces leave no room for a moment of joy, recollection of a wedding or business celebration or professional certificate.
With a lack of office sacred spaces, built just for you by you, modern hierography, or purpose, is often lost in back to back meetings. Without your reason to connect to the bigger personal why, work gets mundane and increased anxiety putting us on the burnout loop.
May laments, “Exhaustion. I’m spiraling into anxiety. I don’t know how to feel fluid again stillness creeping into my bones.”
Can we find peace, joy and enchantment at work if we are never reminded of what has meaning to us? Can our office sacred objects come back to our modern day flexible working? Do we need a reminder of our why more than ever?
Rather than floating from day to day or project to project could an office sanctuary ground us in the daily joys of life and successes?
My home office is filled with three areas of importance, each collected or purchased to remind me of why I work to help women find holistic career traction with purpose at every stage of their life.
1- Part of something bigger. a wall of collected redwood art from my adult working life. One painting, one photograph and another print of the California redwoods line a corner. Reminded of how small I am in comparison to nature’s ecosystem, the pictures help me stay in today, asking, ‘what can I accomplish’?
2- Stay Calmly Focused on the Long Game. External forces like news channels create fear of layoffs, economic strife or fomo for promotions or deals. In Enchantment, Katherine May shares the shift towards individualism in mind body and spirit without access to community causes anxiety that ruminates in all areas of life. A simple scented candle can bring calm on at home conference calls or a vase of dried herbs or lilac in your office create great memories and calm. Scents can transform us to a vacation or part of our day that’s soft
3- The heart forward hierophany- My shelves exist for me, literally no one else. They hold my action board, my word of the month, glue-gunned kiddo artwork, pastel drawings of the coastlines by my oldest daughters, a family vacation photo and driftwood from NorCal line the shelves above my head. Use screen savers if you have a “hotel” work situation.
So how will you show yourself your why at work? Try these:
Improve your space in 2024.
Create a real space that works better than your current corner.
In your work spaces, take a sacred item that means something to your heart, gut, mind and spiritual connection.
Here is a pic of my office sanctuary for inspiration for joy at work.
.