For what do I long?

I am currently reading a book entitled The Mist-Filled Path: Celtic Wisdom for Exiles, Wanderers, and Seekers. Despite my Germanic surname, I have a considerable amount of Celtic blood -- Scots, primarily, and some Irish -- on both sides of my family, and have long had a strong interest in and love for Celtic history and heritage, culture and spirituality.

The chapter I'm reading at the moment deals with the issue of longing, so classic and vital a part of the Celtic character and worldview. So I am led to reflect on what I long for. This is not an exhaustive list, by any means, but it is a snapshot of where I stand at the moment.

I long for the days of my childhood, when my mother was in good health and strength, and all those I loved were still alive.

I also long for the sense of connection I had then, to the world and all that was in it, especially the world of nature, which felt like an extension of myself... or vice versa, my self an extension of the natural world.

I long to live in and with nature, not apart from her... as a fellow-creature and a participant, not an outside observer, however sypathetic.

I long for a closer sense of communion with God (the Divine, the Great Spirit, the Eternal, the Mysterium tremendum et fascinans, and many other names we humans have used, in an attempt to express the inexpressible), at a time when I feel... not "cut off," precisely, but distant, the connection tenuous at best.

I long for a world in which the world of humankind and the world of nature are not separated and at odds, but integrated, to the point of oneness.

Beyond even that, I long for a world in which there is true communion, true interrelation, beween God, nature, and humanity.

I long for the opportunity and ability to do more to help bring that world into being.

On a more pragmatic note, I long for a time of greater security, personally, in which I did not feel so much as if everything in my life, from the life of my mother to my source of income to the place where I live to... well, everything... was rocky and insecure, under constant threat of sudden and cataclysmic change.

I long for more success with my writing, so that something which is so central to my sense of vocation may not be so peripheral to my occupation -- that, combining the two, my writing can become my "occupassion," to quote Joel Salatin.

And I long, deeply, for someone to share my life, to be the recipient of the immense amount of love and caring I have to give, and also to help me shoulder my burdens, bear my pain -- as I, in turn, would help her shoulder her burdens and bear her pains.

I suppose where all those come together is in a longing, a yearning, for the opportunity to use my gifts of writing, of expression, to help re-weave the rifts that our techno-industrial civilization have torn in the web which joins God, nature, and humankind... and to have someone by my side to share that dream, and that vocation.

The trick, at present, is turning longing into action. And that is not so simple as it may sound, staring at the words on the screen of my laptop............