About the Movie
A group of strangers comes together at a modern-day monastery for a month-long retreat, the Tabula Rasa Mystery School.
This monastery has only two guidelines: no private thoughts and no people-pleasing. All who come are offered an opportunity to live by these guidelines and open up to authenticity and trust with each other.
Among the newcomers is a film crew that arrives with the intention of filming the Mystery School. However, intense emotions quickly rise to the surface as the crew attempts to adopt an “intuitive” approach to filming and a new way of being together. In the meantime, the kitchen volunteers are going through the dismantling of egoic pride, jealousy, and identity. The cameras captured the intimate healing process of those involved.
Take Me Home takes you on a journey as its characters break free from repression and avoidance in the face of difficult emotions. It is a song, an experience of love, and a witness to the perfection of the plan for awakening. Every prayer is answered, every tear wiped, and every encounter destined.
A Word from Frances Xu – Director
The idea of making a documentary about the awakening journey started with a dream I had in 2011. At that time, my life took a significant turn as I entered a modern-day monastery. Leaving my old life behind completely, I started learning how to be guided by a power that is beyond logic and reason. At the monastery, daily tasks and projects are used for the sole purpose of developing “intuitive” inner listening in order to connect with the truth and the power beyond this world. For me, Take Me Home was made with this same intention.
In 2017, a film crew came together through a series of synchronicities. Everyone on the team shared the same goal: to use this project for healing. This shared intention enabled us to go toward, rather than away from, each other and to find love and forgiveness when things got difficult. Without everybody holding this goal up front, I wouldn’t have been able to direct the team and make this movie.
I didn’t have a clue what “story” we were going to tell and, from the beginning, we all agreed that I would direct based only on the “inner prompts” I received through prayer. This intuitive, moment-by-moment decision making made it possible for the spontaneous acts of authentic expression and transcendence to be captured on film.
As time went by, the main characters were revealed. Relationships between lovers, family members, and team members unfolded in front of our eyes. However different their stories were on the surface, the lesson was the same: let go and step into the unknown with an open and forgiving heart.
I love the theme that relationships are meant to help each other expand their capacity to love. Our characters are all at the cusp of outgrowing old roles and identities. They learned to put down “the mask,” open up to expressing their most vulnerable calls for love, and find healing in giving the love that they perceived to be lacking.
Many scenes in the movie touched me for reasons I cannot explain. During the editing process, I was guided to allow the experience to come through first and foremost, and let everything else become secondary. I hope that you, too, will be touched and healed by the stream of poignant moments that took place in the lives of our characters.