Create a House of Belonging

During the pandemic, David Whyte recorded his poem, "The House of Belonging", one of my favorites. He explains that this poem is about seeing possibilities from a confined, small place. As a yoga and mindfulness teacher, I also think David Whyte's words apply to the act of creating a home of acceptance and belonging within your own body and mind, our ongoing practice. There is no better house than the house of belonging.
Breathe and please enjoy David Whyte's lovely reading.
“The House of Belonging”
Written 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.
This poem is from River Flow and The House of Belonging by David Whyte.
You can listen to David Whyte’s On Being interview, “The Conversational Nature of Reality.” HERE