i found a temple in my closet

i found a temple in my closet

one of the earliest memories I have is of my closet in my bedroom in my childhood home on Downey Drive in Iowa City, Iowa. There is no one who can confirm the truth of this memory but it’s story is very real to me, that it happened or was imagined seems unimportant. the memory and the place it holds as a childhood refuge is what matters to me. When I was about 9 years old we moved to a new town and into a new house. I had my own bedroom in this house, a small room with a small, narrow, elongated closet with a sliding wooden door. I recall taking all of my horse books (beloved) and drawing materials into that closet, closing the door behind me and sitting there in the darkness. I remember calling this private place, my ro tun da club. I distinctly recall the spelling of the word spaced out in three syllables as I might have found it in the dictionary. When looking this up years later I find it to mean a domed room possibly a sacred or temple-like space of prayer or reverence. I don’t recall how I spent time in my closet, did I lay on the floor looking up into darkness? Into an infinite space, into mystery? Fifty years later when cleaning out our family home I had looked at the closet wondering if I had really spent time there? Had I kept it a secret? Was this a refuge that I inhabited or was it an imaginal temple that only lived in my psyche or my dream life providing sanctuary from the mysteries of what was left unsaid in our family? I believe this memory of my childhood closet to be a foundational story, remembering the inner dream that brought me to life.