Finding

It all began with a parsnip 

that was in fact an artichoke from Jerusalem – 

the birthplace also of jesus and god’s other son doubting its edibility. 

It began with a priest’s daughter, her heightened love of porridge and poetry. 

It began with slow progress and a dram of hope 

and too much rain. Two seemingly lost souls and a faithful dog that have found, perhaps, the most important thing there is to find. 

It began with the fullness of the city that precedes its emptiness, 

Christmas Eve. Two souls looking for home, ending up

on top of Everest with a hot bowl of overspiced curry, 

and too much laughter, a moon and a mountain.

It began with seeing one in another, hot persimmons 

an open sky. 

We know that within the stories that are weighted with meaning, there’s always 

the journey 

the searching and finding 

the climb and descent

blistered feet 

a pilgrimage 

and finding

the most important thing there is to find.



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My journey unfolds like any other, shaped by curvatures and diversions. Searching often takes us into unexpected places, at times seemingly with no way out. We all seem to be searching, for something or someone, and often end up begging god to fill up the fissures as if we’re broken pottery. There is wounding that precedes this search – it speaks of lack, pushing us into an illusion that, outside us, we perhaps one day will find the missing parts. 

It ends on a Sunday morning, a small gifted stone in the palm of my hand. My feet take me to the trees, a forest of quiet, the river. I offer the stone to its flow. Loving, briefly, and letting it go. 

It ends with the complete awareness there is nothing to be found. We are already here, whole. No parts missing. No need to search for the father you’ll never find, for a god to take his place instead. No need to search within the cradle of strangers, within strange arms not acquainted with loving fully, barriers built around their hearts. Loving, briefly, and letting go.

Searching often deceives you that you’ve found, you are found, you have arrived, you are grasping on to the very thing you sought for so long. An illusion that there is even an absence in you. They take the shape of your longing: here’s what you’ve been looking for. What you seek is also seeking you.  

It ends with your body feeling fullness, knowing there was never anything to be found. A journey of searching that ends with a body teeming with strength, a sacred vessel, life pulsing through, convinced of our own worthiness. What you seek is already within: you, the most important thing there is to find.