“What are you hungry for?”
This was a question, one of several, left upon my doorstep.
A gift of my Residency at the Museum of the Mystery.
I held those words gently as I travelled home from my retreat to the high country. I wanted to swallow them whole and let them be enough to satiate me.
But it wouldn’t.
It couldn’t.
I met a god of hunger once, at a circus not all that long ago. He scared me in the way that only fire does when I remember that it can give what is needed and then burn it all away in the exact same breath.
He held his power humbly, offering me a meal.
Cracking open a cavern within me.
A space that ached with need yet needed not to be full.
My instructions called me to the museum’s archives and so, key in hand, I made my way hoping to find something that would satisfy.
I stood in the museum and let my eyes wander the collection. It wasn’t a glimmer that I saw that gave me pause, but rather one I felt when I came upon what appeared to be an innocuous looking journal resting atop what I can only hope are a pile of Salome's scarves.
I opened it greedily, hoping that it held what I needed.
Upon the first page were the words…
Write first.
Read second.
There was even a pen tucked within for my convenience.
I knew what was needed.
I knew what I must do.
And so I found a chair that I could curl myself into and I wrote.
The words tumbled out with ferocity and I dared not to get in their way.
They are presented for you below.
I am hungry for justice.
For a vision beyond our collective breath.
I am hungry with rage and I am hungry for peace.
I am hungry for connections that electrify us down to our bones.
Our soul.
Our fear.
I am hungry for life to be lived absent of the constraints of a world that asks us to hide our hungers, our aches, our truth.
I am hungry to rise up from the chasms I dream of only when the fevers take me.
I am hungry for my cries.
My screams.
For the deep bellows that rip apart the seams that hold us bound to lies that will never feed us what we need.
I am hungry for words and songs and a magic that dances on my tongue before it is spoken to winds that might carry the seeds or might rip us apart.
My hunger is more than just mine. It is a hunger that rises from the point before we all began and I hunger for that.
I hunger to be fed by roots deep enough to bypass the rot that lives where the eye can see.
Not so that I turn from what is.
But so I can be true enough to the deep wild everything ever that I can find the courage to unearth the anguish and fear.
The bitter hate and fruitless drive to feed off the howl of another’s pain.
So that I may hold them all in my palm.
On my tongue.
In my belly.
And allow them to remember what I have.
Allow them to become rooted true once again.
Then I was empty.
And satiated in the moment.
The pages in my hands, wet with tears.
I flipped through until I found the words.
And what magnificent words they were.
Those I shall share with you the next time that I write.
With love and hunger~
Jo Anna
P.S.
Wish Night Care Packages are still available. Receive a plethora of treats and treasures from the market, curated by me for you.
You can claim yours here: https://www.joannadane.com/wishnightmarket
simply, wow.
thank you