We are all strangers in a strange land, longing for home, but not quite knowing what or where home is. We glimpse it sometimes in our dreams, or as we turn a corner, and suddenly there is a strange, sweet familiarity that vanishes almost as soon as it comes.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, The Rock That Is Higher: Story as Truth
Dear friends,
I am deepening my writing practice and picking up a golden thread that has been tangled in my soul for as long as I can remember: belonging.
Where do I belong? To whom do I belong? What does it mean to belong without disappearing? Why do I linger in places where I clearly don’t belong, even when my body knows better? When could I have stayed longer in places I didn’t yet understand I belonged? How do we belong to one another without ownership or submission? Why do we adorn our lives with symbols meant to signal belonging? And how often do those very things keep us from what we truly desire?
Belonging has shaped so many of my choices. It has led me toward joy and into adventure. It has brought me into love and revealed complicated truths. It has also wounded people I love as I slowly awakened to the realization that fitting in is often the exact opposite of being free. Sometimes it has been thrilling. Sometimes terrifying. And yes, occasionally like falling into the Pit of Despair.
I know it in my bones that the old story of exile from the Garden is not really about punishment and actually about the ache that has followed humanity since we had the ability to wonder. It is our shared story of learning to be at home in our own skin, loving and being loved by others, and experiencing a connection with the God of our Understanding.
I know it’s not about finding or buying some mysterious key to acceptance. It’s not showing up as we think others want us to. It has never been about swallowing someone else’s version of what’s “right,” dressing the part, saying the expected words, or shrinking to fit the approved size.
It is about embracing our own squishy realness and relishing the freedom of not being where we don’t belong. It is about loving what it feels like to inhabit yourself fully, maybe even, hopefully even, in the company of at least one other being who knows you by your true name.
Holy sacred texts, batman! Just as I am writing this, the most sacred poem in the world (to me) said, well duh! in my head. I sure love the writing process!
Wild Geese by Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
What does belonging look like to you? Does it have a color, a temperature, a texture? Does it move like water or root like a tree? Is there a person or place where beloging manifests? Where do you feel it in your body - in your throat, your gut, your feet?
I would love to know.
With warmth and wonder,
Hazel