Soul Tales: Soul Hunger

Soul Hunger

There is a deep longing, an empty place, a wild hunger that no mortal food can satiate.

The longest night of the year had finally thrown it’s cover over the land. It was so dark as the clock struck 2 am that even the owl gave up his haunting song and tucked his downy head beneath his still wings. Only on a night such as this could one dive deep into the soul and come up gasping for breath into the hidden caves on the other side. One woman was exploring these dark caverns on a night just like this many years ago.

All through the past year she had been the loving wife, the patient mother, the strong sister, the devoted friend and the dedicated neighbor. The gentle spring breezes blew her scattered longing to the four directions. In the heat of the summer her selfish intentions melted into thin pools of forgotten goals. Her desperate pleas fell to the earth with the ruddy colored leaves as autumn settled over the fields. And now she sat here frigid in her neglected needs feeling the winter numbness spread slowly up her body.

Four seasons of spiritual malnutrition leaves one feeling ravenous for any kind of nourishment. Creative impulses ignored, long hot baths postponed, solitude denied creates a gaping hunger, a heart so empty that nothing is ever enough.

And, so she found herself in front of the refrigerator filling her arms with grapes and leftover chicken and cold mashed potatoes and sticky bottles of jelly to spread over burnt toast. One hand grabbing, the other offering like an ancient cliff side ritual. Nothing was safe. The green onions for tomorrow’s salad, the cottage cheese with just a bit of dusty green mold in one corner, the powdered sugar dissolved in 2% milk, even the tub of yellow miso found their way to her starving mouth. When every last bit of food, even the old spaghetti and the questionable Baba Ganouche had been wiped clean with shaking finger off of the glass shelving she turned, closed the door… and still she was hungry.

“Maybe just one nibble of the prayer plant will top me off,” she thought as she grabbed the plant and gobbled up the whole thing, soil and all. The weeping fig, the aloe and the rose scented geranium still didn’t satisfy her need. The poinsettia wrapped in artificial greenery including the shiny gold bow left her table and her soul empty. The table upon which they sat took no more than 2 seconds to maneuver into the vacuous recesses of her spirit… and still she was hungry.

Room by room she went devouring everything in her path. Couches, computers, ottomans, a king sized bed, even the bathroom sink and still the hole seemed bottomless. Outside she tossed cars like popcorn into her waiting mouth. Her strides became longer as she pulled telephone poles like fresh carrots. She chuckled as she gathered up a dancing stream and tilted her head back so that she wouldn’t miss a single drop… and still she was hungry.

As she lumbered from county to county popping hills like gumdrops and crunching on trees like pretzels she thought to herself, “If not mountains and streams what will fill me?” The rocky riverbeds like crunchy almond granola led her to the sandy beaches that needed to be washed down with the wind and the rain… and still she was hungry.

As she stood before the infinite sea planning how best to devour it she noticed the giant glowing orb teetering on the horizon. “Hmm, she thought, maybe if I eat the sun, the moon and all of the stars in the sky I will finally be finished.” With that thought she opened her jaws wide and in rushed heaven… and then she was full.