LONGING

"LONGING IS THE GROUND OUT OF WHICH PILGRIMAGE ARISES, AND AS WE HAVE SEEN ALSO CHARACTERIZES THE CONNECTION BETWEEN SELF, NATURE, AND THE DIVINE GROUND. IN WELSH, THE WORD HIREATH EXPRESSES THIS KIND OF LONGING, DEEP AND SOULFUL AND IS SOMETIMES SPOKEN OF AS A KIND OF "HOMESICKNESS". In this sense we might imagine it as a homesickness to know our place in the world an inhabit it fearlessly and authentically." Jason Kirkey. 'The Salmon in the Spring - the ecology of Celtic Spirituality.'


This book - recommended to me by the Goddess incarnate, Elizabeth Cunningham and has been one of those digest slowly books- (read reissue from the library 4 times).

I had to read sometimes only a page and then sleep so that it could talk to the deepest parts of me that were sighing with recognition and nourishment...

The part i want to talk about today is entitled longing...

The quote above talks about longing which Jason Kirkey fulfilled by travelling back to Ireland (a country i have long been intregued by (i used to get coffee table books out on Ireland as a primary school child and just look at the pictures) but have yet to visit... Maybe it has something to do with my obsession with green - it always turns up in my gratitude lists....

I also long for South Africa - Calitzdorp, Table Mountain, wildflowers.....i miss that land with a longing that is only quenched by something particularly of that land at the end of that continent, that wildness, that rawness, that powerful, bleak, rich, heart-aching beauty.

And of course i long for the essence of the last sentence in that quote. That knowing of my place in the world, the ability to inhabit this body of mine, claim my space fearlessly and authentically.

That self acceptance, that self celebration, that holding myself to be sacred - and of course in doing so, being able to be a conduit for the divine - because of course when i stop dismissing my innate divinity there is no more excuse....

When i speak of being enough i know it is the key to that gate, the gate that holds me back from that place of self love and celebration.

Being able to ignore that well worn groove in my psyche that believes it is less than, not worthy of, undeserving is the key. To step out of that circular path and startto walk somewhere new is my instinctive understanding of the secret to that nirvana.

The being enough nirvana.

So i long for that.

I get disheartened and feel fake sometimes - i wish i could go with the bravado i have written with here and suddenly jump from the rut, open the gate, bust dramatically out of that ugly belittling habit and march off into my glory. But somedays i have to sweep the floor and manage maudlin children, and make school lunches and walk the dog. Somedays i can be magnificent while i do that and somedays i just do it. Not in the Nike sense. In the just get through sense.

And that doesn't feel like enough enough.

But since i was a small child whenever i was scared i used to say "I want to go home". I could have been tucked up in my safe little middle class bed, where i lived with my nuclear (and yes you can read bomb there if you want) family.

But there was always this deep longing for home that i found difficult to explain.

This longing hasn't left me as i have grown into this numerical adulthood.

I still want to go home when i am scared.

I try to stop the words when they want to tumble out of my mouth for fear that i may be hastening my death (because what is home if it is not with the divine?)

But that yearning for home is deep and true.

I know i am rooted here in Te Tai Tokerau - this particular body i am in knows this is where it is nourished - the trees are familiars, the coast is a friend....

But home is still elusive....

Do you know where home is?