Hunger Without A Name

There is this hunger I have lately. It’s here making itself known in every moment like an intrusive visitor.  When I pay attention, draw it close and tune in, it intensifies, ravenous, raw and burning as if I have not eaten for days or even lifetimes.  I used to fill up this hunger with food and still sometimes mistakenly think that a particular delicious and mouth watering cuisine of some kind or another was what my body was craving.  Trial by catering to the whims of my imagination has left me empty still.  I have given into those physical cravings of the palette like spicy chicken curry made the way my mother used to make it, crepes with strawberries and just a sliver of chocolate ice cream on the side or fresh lobster cooked in the wok with ginger and green onions to perfection as only my mother in law can…and yet all of these has still left me wanting and yearning for something more.

Food and material provisions are not what my soul is craving for.  What it exactly wants remains mysterious yet familiar like when you are driving home in the mist.  I am trying to hold the space for this emptiness to be there without needing to fill it with something. Leaving an open invitation for it to speak to me through the languages of awareness for then I can truly meet it…whatever the “it” is with compassion and kindness for the deepest parts of myself that long to be heard.

Here’s a little poem describing how it feels like in this very moment.  I say in this moment as I am aware that this subtle language of the body and the way it communicates is so sophisticated and yet transient.  Constantly moving and changing….inviting our presence, to pay attention!

Hunger Without A Name

This hunger that comes unannounced,
Has no proper name…

It’s a deep scraping in the throat
A hollowness,
Stretching of the insides
With no beginning or end

A burning in the deep recesses of the belly
Of a slow yet vibrant, determined flame
Strong enough to spread heat
Soft enough not to burn…yet!

A delusional craving like the one that comes from not eating,
Where food is just another diversion
Promising escape like a friendly stranger beckoning an innocent child
With candy and ice cream and other such trickery

A thirst that will not be quenched
It spreads and grows, parching up the insides
Like a dry waterhole in the African plains
Drought that’s forgotten ever having been quenched

What is the sustenance,
That seems just beyond reach?
Lets hold the spaces
Not fill them with empty nectar,
Soulless subsistence will not do any more
Let’s listen,
Wait,
For it to speak