The House of Belonging

Ruin at County Cork Ireland

On the cusp of the new calendar year, I find myself deeply resting. There is a sense in me of deep need for rest. Preparing for the wheel of time to keep turning. 
I have been contemplating David Whyte’s poem “The House of Belonging” (this is an excerpt-the full poem is at the end of this blog):

“This is the bright home 
in which I live,
this is where
I ask 
my friends
to come,
this is where I want
to love all the things
it has taken me so long
to learn to love.
This is the temple
of my adult aloneness
and I belong
to that aloneness
as I belong to my life.

There is no house
like the house of belonging.”

---

For a long time I felt like I did not belong to this land of Australia.

I belonged with my family – a very large and noisy family - who live here. I was born here. But I always felt drawn to the land of Ireland. And, it’s true that I do feel most at home there – spiritually – and “in my skin”- in a way that has been so hard to find here. 

I realise that the bones of my ancestors are not here in Australia. The layers of earth under my feet do not contain them. And yet, my home is created here. The bright cords of my heart’s love are here. My parents, my siblings, my children and grandchildren and my beloved partner. 

My granddaughter Luna in my garden at Katoomba

Luna and I in my garden at Katoomba

Here in these mountains “is where I want to love all the things it has taken me so long to learn to love.” I am here. It is now, and “there is no house like the house of belonging.”

At the end of the Calendar year and moving into 2021, may you find and dwell in your house of belonging, and may the year to come hold love and many dreams-come-true.

---

Here is the full poem.
'The House of Belonging'
BY DAVID WHYTE

I awoke
this morning
in the gold light
turning this way
and that

​thinking for
a moment
it was one
day
like any other.

But
the veil had gone
from my
darkened heart
and
I thought

it must have been the quiet
candlelight
that filled my room,

it must have been
the first
easy rhythm
with which I breathed
myself to sleep,

it must have been
the prayer I said
speaking to the otherness
of the night.

And
I thought
this is the good day
you could
meet your love,

this is the gray day
someone close
to you could die.

This is the day
you realize
how easily the thread
is broken
between this world
and the next

and I found myself
sitting up
in the quiet pathway
of light,

the tawny
close grained cedar
burning round
me like fire
and all the angels of this housely
heaven ascending
through the first
roof of light
the sun has made.

This is the bright home
 in which I live,
 this is where
 I ask
 my friends
 to come,
 this is where I want
 to love all the things
 it has taken me so long
 to learn to love.

This is the temple
of my adult aloneness
and I belong
to that aloneness
as I belong to my life.

There is no house
 like the house of belonging.