Heavy houses.
She built a house.
In languid ways.
Away from the world.
Where hope and despair could not possibly reach her.
She built a house in the flint of a star,
Where love was like this.
Here but somehow far away.
And already dying.
She built a house in a ruin.
Where the holes in the ground were holy,
So she could disappear into empty lament.
But life continued.
And always seemed to be asking her to step outside.
She found she could not carry her houses.
To the full sink.
To the difficult conversation.
To the cube growing behind her as she searched for her wallet.
She found she could not carry her houses anywhere at all.
And so she wondered.
What does the house solve?
When it cannot be taken with you.
A reflection.
Spirituality.
Can become a house.
We cannot carry with us anywhere.
Rather than becoming a way of meeting ourselves more intimately.
Can become another place from which we keep life.
And others at a distance.
Or devotional practice.
Our awakening.
Our path.
May begin as a refuge.
But if they are alive.
They will always ask us to step beyond it.
To truly be free.
After all,
If our spirituality requires any specialness,
Protection or vigilance,
It may no longer be leading us beyond the very exhaustion that brought us to it.
It is a deeply human thing.
To gather ideas,
Identities and beliefs that make us feel safe.
We all have these homes.
But at some point,
It becomes more beneficial to step outside.
Feel the summer rain on our skin.
Let the grass rise between our toes.
And realize nothing needs to be carried.
In order to fully be here.
And deeply alive.
I have lived in many such homes.
They were intelligent refuges at the time.
And many helped.
When I felt like I could not carry on.
But slowly,
I realized that the walls I had built were no longer protecting me.
They were,
In fact,
Separating me from the ordinary tenderness of being alive.
And the self.
Who believed it needed all these houses.
Well,
She turned out to be a part of the facade itself.
Maybe,
Just maybe.
The deeper invitation.
Is not to build a better house.
But to discover the one thing.
That has never been outside of it.
