The landscape of longing

What is the landscape of longing? What does it look like? It is bare, grey. It is the fields of golden green grasses rippling in the sun. It is every barren place, so starkly beautiful, it takes your breath away.

Winter is coming.

It is the still, quiet tundra. It is the hot desert, with grains of sand far outnumbering the raindrops. It is the arctic plains, with white snow and caribou. It is the harsh winter – the only way to survive is to burrow into the ground, with smoke and fat. It is the prairies, golden wheat as far as the eye can see. No relief, no variable.

It is the ocean. Only shades of blue, swells. Sometimes it is fierce, sometimes it is deceptively calm. There is so much underneath the surface, it is frightening.

It is the vast dark of space. Unknowable. It is the fear, and the pleasure of seeing that landscape within yourself, and longing to surrender to it.

It is also the lonely, vacant lot, with crumbling cement and fading graffiti. It is the dirt lot out back, overgrown with dandelions.

The landscape of longing is every vast, empty space, within and without.

Longing is never fulfilled.

It must find its expression in open sky, land, sea, and soul.

The very longing itself is the purpose of its existence.

There is no end to longing, and no beginning. It lies heavy, and light, on the heart. It billows out of the soul; it rises from the earth like the fog on a damp morning.

Longing is everywhere. And every landscape, inner and outer, must evidence its reflection in everything. It is neither good, nor bad. It is. It is the stuff of life, of being human. Of earth, and heart. All of this – fear, hope, love, desire – is wrapped up in its being.

The only way to face longing is to surrender to it, and not resist its magnetic pull.

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