Longings

Chaucer tells us that it's in Aprill when longen folk to goon on pilgrimages. For those of another faith the month is actually Zulhijjah, but the longings are constant across humanity. Of course, Chaucer's pilgrims have very mixed reasons for their journeys to Canterbury but it was one of his greatest insights to recognise that even for the most villainous of them the need to find the still centre of the great turning world was central to their motives.

I'm not yet ready to make the great pilgrimage, but I couldn't be longing for that still centre any more at any time than I am at this moment.