Hiraeth is a Welsh word that describes a mix of feelings and emotions including grief, sadness, longing, yearning, nostalgia, homesickness. The website We Learn Welsh considers phrases like “there’s no place like home” to be akin to the feeling of hiraeth. This poem by Andrew Challis beautifully expresses the feeling of belonging to Wales and longing for that sense of home when you are away from it.
‘𝐇𝐢𝐫𝐚𝐞𝐭𝐡’
When you come from Wales there’s a feeling of belonging,
for those that have left for different lands a constant sense of longing.
This longing is called ‘hiraeth’ only the Welsh can understand,
a yearning for their nation and wonderful homeland.
‘Hiraeth’ it exists and indeed it can be strong,
the love for Wales is palpable for the place that you belong.
Often being away from Wales you feel there’s something that you lack,
‘hiraeth’ is the magnet that wants to draw you back.
‘Hiraeth’ an emotion, not easy to explain,
whenever you leave
the heart does grieve
to be back in Wales again.
It can feel there’s something missing, in your life there is a hole,
there’s an ache within your heart and a pining in your soul.
No matter how long ago you left, how long you’ve been apart,
‘hiraeth’ is there always and Wales is in your heart.
𝐂𝐨𝐩𝐲𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 © 𝐀𝐧𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐰 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐬
Last weekend we went to a favourite gallery for the opening of an exhibition on the theme of Hiraeth. It got me thinking about the ache for something that may have gone from our life, the sense of longing, and also the sense of ‘home’. What is home? Where is it? And what does it mean to come home?
In my last post I mentioned a small wooden turtle that I was given as a gift by my parents when I was a very little girl. I fell in love with turtles as a tiny tot - one particular turtle in fact. It was nearly as big as me and belonged to a friend of my parents. It was not alive. It was a piece of taxidermy. I do not know why I was so drawn to this turtle, but I was.
When Mr Durranty died and his belongings were put up for auction, I begged my dad to bid for the turtle. The bidding went way beyond what he could pay for it and I was bereft. So the little wooden turtle arrived that Christmas.
Connecting up the dots of my childhood home, this wee turtle and hiraeth, I know I have experienced a deep grief and longing for the ‘home’ I grew up in since we gave up the cottage in 2018, the year after my father died. My parents had rented it for 55 years, but it wasn’t suitable for a 90 year old widow so we moved mum to a bungalow in the middle of the village. I miss it, especially the garden, and while the cottage stands empty and increasingly derelict (the windows are now boarded up), that old greenhouse in the top picture stands resolute.
This isn’t meant to be sad post, full of nostalgic longing, it just got me thinking about the notion of hiraeth and what actually is home? And I think home can be many things and we can find home in many places.
We tend to attach ‘home’ to a physical place, not necessarily a house but somewhere where we feel sanctuary, comfort and safety; where we belong. It might be a country, a geographical area, a landscape, a forest, a field, a building, a shed at the bottom of the garden, a book shop.
Or we might connect ‘home’ to people, a loved one or a group where we feel safe and supported. This week in our online FAB Business Club meeting one of the members shared her incredibly vulnerable story, held by the psychologically safe and supportive container we create together.
Home can be found in a song, a poem, a book, a favourite author, a band.
I keep looking at my wee turtle and thinking how it carries its home with it. I’m contemplating that home can be a place inside us where we carry all the qualities of the places and spaces we long for. I can feel connected to the sanctuary and safety of my childhood home without being in its physical presence. I can carry it with me as the turtle carries its shell.
We can long for a place, a space or a person and yet is it the qualities of that place, space, person that we really long for? The qualities of my childhood home were space to grow and play, freedom, a deep connection to the land and earth, and love. All of these I carry within me. Perhaps our deepest longing is connection and the knowing that we are loved and that we are love. The path home to ourselves is as individual as we are, and I think we can find clues and breadcrumbs in what we long for.
I understand and acknowledge that for many the psychologically safe sanctuary of home is not so readily found within or without. And that the longing for something or someone, the longing for home - especially the longing to be at home within yourself - is a very real and constant companion. I also know that with the right support, guidance and help, we can all find our way home to ourselves.
So I leave you with these thoughts to contemplate: where is ‘home’ for you? Where or for what do you feel hiraeth? What are your longings showing you about your own path back to yourself? And what of ‘home’ do you already carry within you?
May I also gift you a blessing from my favourite author, John O’Donohue. His words always bring me home.
To come home to yourself
May all that is unforgiven in you,
Be released.
May your fears yield
Their deepest tranquilities.
May all that is unlived in you,
Blossom into a future,
Graced with love.
Until next time, with love from my soul to yours.
What a gorgeous garden, Tina! I've fallen in love with it and can understand your longing for that beautiful space. Where is home? It's a question I ask every single day and the answer is different every time. So, in short, I don't know. It's many places and spaces. Some homes I've outgrown. Some have been taken away. Some belong in my memory bank. I guess it's a never-ending search...until we, maybe, go home--wherever HOME is :)