All Longing Is for the Sacred

Much of what we call neurosis 
is not pathology but longing—longing for something vast, something sacred. It is the unmet need 
for connection, not just to other people, but to something beyond the individual self. 

Yet in a world that offers few containers for this longing—no rites of passage, no deep communal practices, no shared mythos—this energy has nowhere to go. And energy that cannot move does not simply dissipate; it accumulates, pressurizes, and seeks an outlet, often in distorted or destructive forms. 

The psyche, like a river, has a natural course.
It flows toward meaning,
toward intimacy, toward participation in a larger whole.
But when that flow is obstructed—by cultural conditioning, by the disconnection of modern life—it does not stop. 

It backs up, it stagnates,
it overflows in ways that look like anxiety, depression, or addiction. These are not just mental health conditions; they are signals of a deeper disorder—one rooted in the loss of an essential circulation. 

This buildup of energy, this state of being overfull yet unfulfilled, is what I call tumescence.
It is the pressure of something that wants to move but has been blocked. 


When we can hold the tension without fleeing from it, when we can stay with the discomfort long enough, something shifts. The river finds its course again.
And in that movement, we remember who we are.