...behind this outer facade, another life is going on in you. The mind and heart are wanderers who are always tempted by new horizons. Your life belongs in a visible, outer consistency; your inner life is nomadic. Hegel says, "just this unrest that is the Self." Your longing frequently takes you on inner voyages that no one would ever guess. Longing is the deepest and most ancient voice in the human soul. It is the secret source of all presence, and the driving force of all creativity and imagination: longing keeps the door open and calls towards us the gifts and blessings which our lives dream.
...longing is a quality of desire which distance or duration evokes. In other words, your longing reaches out into the distance to unite you with whatever or whomsoever your heart desires. Longing awakens when there is a feeling that someone or something is away from you. It is interesting that the word "desire" comes from the Latin "desiderare," which originally meant "to cease to see." This suggested a sense of absence and the desire to seek and find the absent one. Deep down, we desire to come back into the intimate unity of belonging.
~ John O'Donohue
from Eternal Echoes