A word i never knew i needed

Has a word ever punched you in the soul? 

That’s truly the only way to describe what happened when a friend said this word: Hiraeth.


It wasn’t the word itself, but when they defined it, it was as if I'd always known what it meant but forgot. 

 Hiraeth is a Cymraeg (Welsh) word that, like so many words, doesn’t directly translate into English. 

 My friend described it as a longing for a home your soul has never known. 
 
And according to Samantha Kielar of Penn State University, it translates to something like...

"a homesickness or yearning for a home that you cannot return to, no longer exists, or maybe never was."


 This is both heartbreaking and affirming because I know this ache. Do you?


The desire, almost desperation, to belong somewhere so deeply that the place loves me just as much as I love it; For the soul of a place and mine to be one. 


I wonder if this word only came about after humans wandered far from the place where their ancestors' bones are buried, and their souls began to feel the pain of separation from their ancestral home..


 It also made me wonder if this is the most prevalent malady in our modern culture. 


 Are most people just walking around with their souls in pain because they've lost a home they never knew? 


 And what if the only way we can satiate this hunger for belonging is to grow roots where we are right now? 


This word, Hiraeth, tugged at what I've been working so hard to do for the past 20 years. To grow roots so deeply into the Earth that the connection is intimate, undeniably sacred, and, dare I say, mutual. 


This word is why I designed a new course, Sacred Nature, to guide participants to reconnect their soul with the soul of the world, to move towards peace and spiritual connection with their place to quell the pangs of homesickness.


Check my programs section for upcoming registration details. ​