2000/urge

“Our spiritual thirst propels us to seek fulfillment, and we make the mistake of trying to quench it in the wrong direction.”

(Christina Grof, The Search for Wholeness: Attachment,
Addiction, and the Spiritual Path)

I am trying to learn
to stand in the emptiness,
not to rush away
or eat to fill it.
I am trying to remember
first, to sit down and
hear what it has to say.
I walk the shadowed edge,
where dark and light duke it out
for title to my life.
Cliche, but true.
Monday directed and clear,
Tuesday a murky mess.
“I have to forego the chai,” I think.
The bagel with cream cheese
I know is a fatal choice.
How am I to forge ahead when
I cannot get past breakfast?
Urge, I think, is what
I have to watch out for.
Somehow different from desire,
which wisdom says is right
to be fulfilled.
Urge will not let go,
will not shut up
until it has its way,
urge cannot be reasoned with,
scheduled.
Urge is an only child,
a first-born male,
the center of the room,
which is full of doting
aunts .

1/6/00