Why I named my creative studio Surround Life Design

Why Surround Life Design?

may you allow the wild beauty of the physical world
to gather around you, mind you, and embrace you in belonging.
~ excerpt From Belonging by John O’Donohue

The word surround has lived with me for a very long time. Within its meaning, I sensed a conscious and unconscious magnetism. A describable force which draws us in and towards something. I think it’s related to the simultaneous yet conflicting desire to be alone and still yet together and held. 

You are not alone. A friend, a sister, even the ocean or a flower can be an ally. This is the importance and power of gathering together, to be surrounded with and by.

It evokes within a particular mood of ease and connection; a state of grace.

I associate it with the space between us. Or described another way, as the force that calls us together to gather.

For at the center of a space there is something that we all are drawn to. The raw, gritty, and beautiful feeling of connection. That we are a part of something that holds us together. 

We gather together to listen to stories, we gather to share our sadness, we gather to celebrate heart, we gather to light a candle, we gather to serve and share food with one another, we gather to eat, we gather in song. We gather in prayer and ritual. On and on it goes.

We gather to connect because we are the ones which surround.

The origin of the word comes from the act of pouring over, to flow, like a wave. Later it was associated with roundness. Looking it up one will read; to encircle or to be all around.

Surround is the beauty we gather around.