Episode Summary
Have you ever felt like you don’t belong where you are? Where might be that place? How do you find it?
Episode Notes
Hello! to you in Duluth, Minnesota. Coming to you from Whidbey Island, Washington this is 60 Seconds, your daily dose of hope, imagination, wisdom, stories, practical tips, and general riffing on this and that.
3 ½ years on Whidbey Island and I’m still at odds with belonging. Did I choose too soon? No. There were exigent circumstances. Did I choose too foolishly? No. I’m practical with the heart of an Aquarian Dreamer. Then what? I don’t feel my identity being sculpted here. Somehow I’m still missing a sense of belonging, belonging to a place I can inhabit because I am so linked to it that to leave would be my undoing.
Now what? Well, in the time-honored fashion of others in a quandary turn to poetry and reassess. Perhaps I must, in the words of the poet David Whyte: “… begin to love all the things it’s taken me so long to love.” and begin to belong that way.
Click here to hear David Whyte recite The House of Belonging.
“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 black day
someone close
to you could die.
This is the day
you realise
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.” [by David Whyte]
Very inspiring. You have a strong voice and advocate for women thats great. You are well educated and also schooled through the life of hard knocks. Its an honor to meet you and I hope to read more of you.
Hello, Eva Marie ~
Thank you very much for taking your time to listen & respond. I am grateful that you invested in what I have to offer – seeing so clearly how I am in the world. From your comment I trust that both of us have experience with a life of hard knocks.
I’d like to get to know you a bit more. Perhaps we can set up a Zoom Room chat.
Email me at: [email protected]
Or, DM me on LinkedIn.
And, if I can be of use to you and your colleagues helping them get to the heart of the message, feel welcome to ask.