House of Belonging

As I was cleaning off my desk this morning, I came across this beloved poem by David Whyte, perhaps my all time favorite.  I am so fond of it that years ago, I printed it on this Pillow of Sei Shonagon, that I knit in Eurofax.  These words also appear on the header in my blog.  Perhaps I've shared it with you before but it is worth repeating.  The pillow still sits on an antique rocking chair in my living room.  And it's one of the things I'd grab if I had to vacate my house quickly taking only my favorite things with me. It puts everything in perspective.  

House of Belonging

by David Whyte

I woke this morning in the gold light

turning this way and that

thinking for one moment

it was a day like any other.

But the veil had gone from my darkened heart.

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 realize how easily

the thread is broken between this world

and the next 

and I found myself sitting up

in the quiet pathway of the night.

The tawny close grained cedar

burning around me like fire

and all the angels of this housely heaven

ascending through the first roof of light

this sun has made.

This is the bright home in which I live.

This is where I ask my friend 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.