"Come you in and sit you down,
What you lost shall here be found.
Bowl and cup shall slake your lack,
Cast the bundle from your back.
No more wandering, no more war,
Come you in and close the door."
___ Caitlin Matthews, "The Wanderer's Welcome Home"
The annual sense of settling down to things as the years turns toward winter makes us appreciate our home at this time. Home supplies us with roots, it nourishes us and makes possible all that we do, holding and cradling us when our activities are concluded for the day.
Yet there are many for whom the family house is no home: young people who yearn to fly the next, and who are dissatisfied with their parents' way of of running things for example, and relatives who have to live with their family as dependents because of age or infirmity. And there are many who are without a home of their own, who lodge uneasily in inconvenient, noisy apartments, in temporary accommodations, in dirty alleyways or in draughty doorsteps. For wanderers and travelers, the home is wherever they lay their heads.
The home that lives in our hearts and minds forever calls out to us to come and be where we are most true to ourselves. It is a strong spiitual calling to our soul to inhabit our body in the fullest sense. When the spiritual concept of the soul's home and our desire for a place to live become confused, there is remarkable upheavel, even war.
People move from one land to another, seeking a home of their own. When we acknowledge and welcome the soul within, we come home in truth: we can jettison the burden of expectation that we have been carrying this long while and, for the first time, come home, really home.
"What or where is home for you?"
[From: The Celtic Spirit", by Caitlin Matthews]
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