Like this:

Two rivers meet here

One, the river of belonging, flows from our past

Reminding us of who we are

That we have been birthed in love

Reminding us that we need to look nowhere to find it

Another, the river of longing, flows from this moment

Into the possibility of the future

The ever-not-quite-ness of now.

Here, in the heart,

At the confluence of longing and belonging,

At the chaotic matrix of each moment,

Awe-some and Awe-ful,

Terrific and Terrible,

Love is born.

“At the Confluence of Longing and Belonging”

Originally published in Handprints on the Womb, Theodore Richards, 2009

Hiraeth: Longing for Belonging on the Banks of the River Teifi

In the memory of my grandfather, Rev Thomas Richards

&

My great-grandfather, Rev T. Teifion Richards

On the banks of the River Teifi, just before river meets sea, there is a small town called St. Dogmael’s. The ruins of a small abbey make something like a town square, but there is little more to speak of in the town.

I take a picture of the abbey and send a postcard home to my grandfather.

I follow the banks of the river a downstream. Little British houses become at once more sparse and spare until all that remains is rock and water and heath. This is a place for the birds and the fishes to comingle. The human has always been a visitor here, a wayfarer, or, at best, a participant.  It was here, among the mists and wetlands, at the very edge of the Old World, my ancestors learned to be preachers and poets.

I have come to Wales to remember.

To read the rest of the article, please go to the Hiraeth Press Blog.

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