My Life Abroad: The Chiangmai Chronicles - Vol 3 _ My Home, My Sanctuary

Hello beautiful friend, hope you’re feeling positive and sparkly today! Thank you for stopping by to send some love; I’m sending you some love and light right back.

As I sat down to think of a blog post this morning, I started looking around my home and feeling immense gratitude for this space. Immense gratitude for the way my house makes me feel; it brings me comfort, warmth, stability, and joy every time I come home, and I am so grateful for this space and all that it offers me. After a few minutes, I realized it would be nice to take some time to write about my house here in Chiangmai, and give thanks to it in this way. Also, I think it will be a great way for me to remember this very special time in my life, too.

So, in this edition of “The Chiangmai Chronicles”, I give you: The Lighthouse: my home, my sanctuary

_{The front sitting room of my house}

About a year ago, I was living in a very rustic home in the middle of a fruit orchard about 30 minutes outside of Chiangmai’s “old city”. I was the only human living there, which was wonderful because I love my alone time, but I was also living amongst hundred of mosquitos and spiders and little critters, too. You see, my old house didn’t really have any walls…. It was a little wooden Thai home, with an open concept. The downstairs was completely open, surrounded by plants and a little pond just a stone throw’s away (aka, mosquito breeding ground 😆). The upstairs was also mostly all open, aside from my bedroom, which did have 4 walls and a ceiling (although there were many holes in the walls!) The only other enclosed area was the kitchen, but with lots of open windows, it didn’t offer much protection from the flying friends and crawling critters.

_{Some photos of my previous, rustic, wall-less, jungle home}

The house was wonderful for having parties though, which I had often, because the open space allowed much room for dancing! And the fruit in all the trees made great snacks for all the people with munchies. But in my regular day-to-day life, I was very easily fed up with all the bug bites, and the wolf spiders that are the size of my fist and like to hangout in my toilet… Thus, the day came when I couldn’t handle it anymore and decided I desperately needed to move into a standard home, with walls, and insulation, and maybe even air conditioning!!

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Thus began my journey to find the home of my dreams…In order to find a home I could afford, I had to sacrifice living alone, so I asked two of my very close friends to move in with me. We decided we wanted to have a 3-bedroom home, with a large kitchen, and a big enough living space to have cacao ceremonies, and music jams, and other gatherings in. So I began the search….and I looked, and I looked, and I looked…. It was surprisingly hard to find a home in the right area, with the right price, with the right number of rooms, and a big enough living area…. 16 houses and all of them had something that just wasn’t right… but, thank my lucky stars, house number 17 was perfect.

Finally, I found the perfect home for us. A big enough kitchen with a good amount of counter space (plus, a full size fridge, which is rather hard to come by here in Thailand), 3 great sized bedrooms, all with high ceilings, making them feel even more spacious, 2 full bathrooms, a balcony with a laundry room!!!, an outdoor sitting area with a lush green field/forest to gaze upon, a big, open living area, perfect for having ceremonies and gatherings, and a bonus living space complete with a fireplace! Plus it was fully furnished, and had AC units in all 3 bedrooms, and, obviously, it had WALLS! Such an upgrade for myself! The house had everything we were looking for, and then some, it was in a perfect location, and it was in the lower half of our budget! Only 16,000 baht (or $485 for the whole house! (split 3 ways…)) Gosh I love Thailand, and specifically Chiang Mai... it’s so dang affordable!!!

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So we signed the lease, and began the process of moving in. My best friend Krystal had arrived by this time, so we moved in together. Also, because we planned on using the space for ceremonies and events and building our personal businesses, we wanted to invest some money and time into fully decorating our house so it could be the healing, comforting, sanctuary we had envisioned.

Now, I tell you, my friend Krystal loves to get things done quickly and efficiently. So within 2 weeks, we had completely redone the entire house and it was ready to host events and ceremonies and start making us money. We bought some beautiful rugs to ground the space and make it feel warm and inviting. We hung tapestries on the walls and created sacred altar spaces with crystals and incense. The biggest challenge we took on was transforming the small living space, with the fireplace, into a “Persian-esque tea and cuddle room”. We bought meters upon meters of fabric to hang from the walls and drape from the ceilings. We also covered the floor in padding, and fabrics, and cushions and pillows, making the entire room basically one big cuddle puddle bed. And of course, we put twinkling fairy lights everywhere. We also fully decorated our bedrooms and added some love to the bathrooms. We bought some extra counters for the kitchen, and LOTS of jars to put our seeds and spices into (you can never have enough jars, right?).

It was a lot of hard work, but within just 2 weeks our sanctuary, our home, The Lighthouse was born.

Why did we decide to call our house The Lighthouse?

Since we wanted to be housing events and holding ceremonies at the house, we thought we should come up with a name for it. And one evening, our friend Marcus bestowed upon us some wisdom that inspired the name. He and Krystal were speaking one evening, and he said to her,

“Stop being a flashlight. With such a limited and narrow field of vision, stop searching, and searching, and searching for what it is that you’re looking for.. Stop doing it that way. Instead, be a lighthouse. Shine your light out, with intention on what you want, and watch as everything you desire, comes to you.”

This message was so powerful then, and it continues to be so today. And with that, we decided to call our house The Lighthouse, and be a source of love and light and safety in the city. A place where people can come to us to feel connection and acceptance and love.

And that is exactly what my house does do for me. I feel joy every time I come home. I feel cozy, and warm, and I love that it’s a space people want to be in; because it means I don’t have to leave, my friends come over to my house to hangout instead! Yay!

In my opinion, it’s so important to create comfort in your home. Never underestimate the power of comfort! And never underestimate the power of pillows. (You definitely can never have to many pillows.)

Over the years I’ve realized how important it is to me to create a safe and welcoming space. And also, how enjoyable I find the process. I love to make spaces cozy and comfortable and welcoming for people. I love to anticipate needs and create spaces that allow everyone to have a pleasant experience. This is one of the reasons why I love to throw parties and hold ceremonies, because I love to create and hold space for people. I love how a space can help create an energy; it can help all those that enter into it reach a certain vibration and thus brings more and more people into my life who I vibe with and resonate with.

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Anyways, back to the story! Ha! Within 3 weeks of moving in, Krystal and I held our first event: Self Love Sunday, and it was a beautiful success. We had a music area, an art area, and we encouraged people to share healing modalities with each other. People were doing tarot readings and astrology readings. People were offering massages and others were wrapping crystals. This was also the gathering that led to me and my partner @yinyangmichael dating. He came, and he offered free ear acupuncture to everyone there, which was so lovely for us all, and throughout the day he and I were able to chat and connect and plan ourselves an upcoming date... Krystal and I also offered cacao and masala chai tea out to our guests, and we had some really nice songs being created in the music corner. It was a smashing success, and the beginning of a beautiful journey of holding ceremonies and gatherings at the house.

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Since then, Krystal and our other roommate Lola have moved out and onwards from Chiang mai, but I’m still in the house, and now living here with Michael 😃 💜 And now we each have our own bedroom and space, plus we are using the 3rd bedroom for a healing space, where Michael has been offering acupuncture and I plan to start offering Reiki. Michael and I are also continuing to hold workshops and ceremonies and the house, so The Lighthouse lives on!

Anyhow, I’ll stop my rambling now, and finally let you SEE the house!

So without further ado, I’l take you on a little tour of my home, The Lighthouse.

<sub>This is the main living area of the house. The sitting room is pictured on the left, where most of the daily hanging out happens.
On the right, you can see the doors heading out into the backyard/garden and the co-working table where all my blog post magic happens.

In the photo on the left you can see my favorite area of the house: The Persian-inspired cozy, cuddle, tea room.
And on the right you can see another view of the main living space.

In these photos you can see our kitchen, including a small selection of our many jars!
And on the right, you can see our green backyard view

And lastly, here is my bedroom... where the magic happens 🌟 🌟</sub>

I am so happy with the how the house turned out, and feel so blessed to come home to this cozy sanctuary every day. Thanks for taking the time to stop by and checkout the tour and story of my house.

I hope the rest of your day is absolutely magical, just as you are.

Until next time. I love you...
🌈 Rachel

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