Laurel moved into her own space for the first time in her life this past year.
She was excited because she would finally be able to live some of the visions she had only dreamed about prior, co-habitating with others and only having a small room to herself.
After moving into her own place, she realized it might be nice if it had a name. The past year had been a difficult one, and moving into her own space felt like a significant milestone. Naming it might render that milestone even more special.
The space wasn’t that big, but it got really good light. Out the windows, you could experience the trees moving slowly in the wind.
The first word that came to her was “Sanctuary.” She knew she wanted her home to be this most of all. The outside world, especially in the pandemic, felt like acid rain at times. The sanctuary would be its own calm, restorative, and nurturing other world.
When we look up "sanctuary" in the dictionary today, looking back, we see it first means a "shelter" and secondly a "holy or sacred place."
In those early days, Laurel went to the hardware store early on to get her keys copied. She bought some of those plastic key coverings so that she could tell the difference between her multiple keys. She remembers choosing the yellow covering for her special key.
When she opened the door with the yellow, the word “Firefly” came to her. She realized this was the other word she had been looking for.
From the tour:
You might be wondering why I call it the Firefly Sanctuary …
Well, I’ve always identified as a firefly. (It’s actually my primal astrology, too.) I think because I like to glow and fly. And I often do it at night … kind of hidden style. My apartment itself gets really good light … sometimes it feels like it’s glowing … and other times, when I see the trees moving in the wind through my windows, I’m kind of flying in a spaceship …
Giving her house a name turned it into something else, somehow. When showing her this website as it was being made, her friend Becca said the website is a way to “honor this space as a being.”