hunger

There is a place within each of us that burns with hunger. Not for food, but for recognition, for challenge, for support, for discovery, and for a chance to shine.

Often we don't get a chance to indulge or explore that facet of ourselves because of other, more basic demands: food, shelter, protection, and a sense of belonging or of family at a base chakra level of existence. To be replaced with a need for expression, recognition, connection, intimacy with another and finally sexual gratification at the second chakra level of consciousness.

Some people spend most of their lives and attention on these things, by circumstance or training, by Nature or by Nurture, missing the whole picture of other realms of existence. Many people living and existing at this level of understanding about reality, are often doubtful that "higher realms" of consciousness can have value, because their capacity to comprehend what is valuable hinges on ideals framed by the level of comprehension they are unknowingly trapped at. They seek concrete material evidence. Material reality of houses, ho's, cars, and shiny toys, yet even with this treasure trove they are not truly happy. The feeling persists that something is still missing.

To someone who knows No other possibility of reality, or satisfaction this is the only thing that CAN make sense: Better MUST be more, bigger, stronger, faster, harder, or have a larger price tag. period. There is simply no other possibility to this person. Until their ability to comprehend has a chance to evolve organically through insight or experience, argument is pointless since it only threatens their sense of reality and what is possible to the point of seeming unrealistic and fool hardy.

Perhaps I am awful, and I am indeed arrogant, because I truly pity these people. I pity them, but it is no longer with anger, or judgement, but with compassion and a desire to open a window and share a wider sense of possibility. I want to bridge the gap, to open the door of understanding and turn the light on for those willing to consider that there is more to life and reality than anyone can know, even those of us who pride ourselves on exploring and expanding our own understanding of potential and possibility. I cannot make anyone Choose more, but I hope can help them see that perhaps there is more to consider and to choose from, if they are willing. This is my calling.

At some point in life, when the time and conditions are right, we all get an opportunity to see beyond tribal and family mind. Eventually those basic needs are sated, or fulfilled and still we yearn. We hunger for something we may not even be able to identify. We long for something more, and with out an example to strive towards or a language to identify and placate these unformed desires we are at a greater risk of doing something dire, or unintentionally propagating avoidance and numbing behaviors which contribute negatively to the self, the family and society: like drug abuse, depression, cruelty, aloofness, shutting down, bitterness, sarcasm, inventing drama, picking fights, or projecting our own unidentified limitations onto others and persecuting them for not living with in our own ill-defined parameters of "how it should be". We become a part of the problem in our struggle to be free of it.

This is a struggle with the self. Basic third chakra identity issues that we must all come to at some point in our journey. A common place for most of us to get stuck and to flounder. A place where our greatest strengths might prove to be our greatest weaknesses, and these traits we've never developed or given voice to, might be the very ones that lift us to a new level of insight or understanding. Confidence might become arrogance, compassion may become victimized, and being reserved may become apathetic. It is a place where everyone else seems to be "doing it wrong", when really it is our own ceiling of understanding and insight that is cracking up and getting ready to expand. Ultimately we can only change our selves and our own point of view and ways of looking at and relating to another or an experience. Something we are trained earlier on to resist at all costs.

The tribal or family mind teaches us to adapt our selves and our desires, beliefs and behaviors to get along for the good of the tribe. But self hood and self actualization comes at the cost of rejecting not only some of the families values but the closed way of viewing outside information, of judging "others"; be it lifestyle, choices, motivations, belief systems, which might look like politics, religion, or gender identification. All hot buttons to humans struggling with base chakra level issues. But a vital place of open mindedness and exploration, compassion, and consideration on the road to whole person-hood, and self
actualization.