The philosopher-poet David Whyte draws from Rainer Maria Rilke’s poem ‘The Swan’ to understand our movement to and from belonging. In his poem, Rilke describes the swan’s awkward movement upon the land. The swan then nervously enters the water. Once received by the water and carried by its flow, the swan finds its grace.
Humans move awkwardly until they find their belonging. In their belonging, whether that is in relation to person, place, or activity, they find their grace. We move in and out of our belonging. Our longing is fundamentally a desire to belong. And our belonging occurs when we find that element of life that can receive us and call forth our grace.
But because life is constant change we will find ourselves at some point ejected by those people, places or activities where we once found our belonging. At these moments it is an act of grace that guides us back to ourselves to where we most fundamentally and unchangeably belong. We discover that we are that element of life that can truly receive us and within which find our home.