In My Tribe

A Homecoming

One faith is bondage. Two

are free. In the trust

of old love, cultivation shows

a dark and graceful wilderness

at its heart. Wild

in that wilderness, we roam

the distance of our faith;

safe beyond the bounds

of what we know. O love,

open. Show me

my country. Take me home.

"Country of Marriage" by Wendell Berry, Copyright 1973

Through the way she loves me every day I have known her, she teaches me the true meaning of anam cara. Indeed, it was from her mouth I first heard those sacred Celtic words meaning “soul friend.” So it was with great sadness and embarrassment that I realized and acknowledged I was jealous of her knowing the ways of her soul through the wisdom and spirituality of her ancestors.

We so often disown our more base emotions, like jealousy; yet if we allow, they provide an illumination to what wants to be healed in our own interior landscapes. Through the marker of this particular wound, I recognized my longing for the rich and colorful history and sacred rites of the indigenous, tribal cultures of my mother’s Scottish/Irish and Mexican/Apache lines.

Like innumerable others, my people came to this great tapestry of American hope and promise, yet left their origins of faith and place of belonging behind. Because of that I see how, at times, I had a sense of feeling unanchored, groundless, and lost in my life.

So I find myself on a pilgrimage to my deeper place of belonging…belonging in my tribe and the new land of my ancient heritage. It is my birthright, and yet, a birthright of which I somehow don’t yet feel worthy; and of which I feel so woefully ignorant.

I don’t know why I have been called to hear the whispering voices and unspoken agreements of the generations before me, but I do know with my every fiber that called, I have been. Called to a cultivation of loving the faiths of my people, my countries, my home. Called to a cultivation of a deeper loving of me.