(Tuesday, June 6, 2023)
I opened my old book “The Prophet.” to page 31, which talks about the idea of Houses:
Then a mason came forth and said: Speak to us of Houses.
And he answered and said:
Build of your imaginings a bower in the wilderness ere you build a house within city walls.
For even as you have home-comings in your twilight, so has the wanderer in you, the ever distant and alone.
Your house is your larger body.
It grows in the sun and sleeps in the stillness of night; and it is not dreamless. Does not your house dream? and dreaming, leave the city for grove or hill-top?
Your house shall not be an anchor but a mast.
It shall not be a glistening film that covers a wound, but an eyelid that guards the eye.
You shall not fold your wings that you may pass through doors, nor bend your heads that they strike not against a ceiling, nor fear to breathe lest walls should crack and fall down.
You shall not dwell in tombs made by the dead for the living.
And though of magnificence and splendour, your house shall not hold your secret nor shelter your longing.
For that which is boundless in your abides in the mansion of the sky, whose door is the morning mist, and whose windows are the songs and the silences of night.