As the inaugural post for Hungry Heart Quests, I want to share my inspiration for the name of my business. The name is greatly inspired by an anonymous poem found over a decade ago, along with the design of an adventurous life of growth and adaptation.
First let us address “Quests”. The process of questing is as old as time. The term derives from the Latin quaesitus, investigation, seeking, searching. The modern term Quest can mean “A journey or effort in pursuit of a goal (often lengthy, ambitious, or fervent)”. To quest is to set out in search of something great, a journey of great challenge and import. To quest for something is to seek it actively.
A questing person is required to put themselves into adversity, to leave the comfort of the castle, their home, for a strange and distant world, perhaps never to return. I recall T.H. White’s version of the legend of King Pellinore of Arthurian Legend. Pellinore has by line of birth been obligated to hunt the questing beast. The king is depicted as silly, sometimes mad in his relentless quest for the mysterious beast that calls knights and kings alike to venture on a quest, often an initiation. Pellinore never settles, hunting through the untamed wilds, floating in that liminal space where mystical beings linger between the material and spiritual worlds.
What if… a person was drawn to seek something ephemeral and evasive? To explore rather than wander? Perhaps Pellinore never captured his beast, but if he had, the spirit of the questing beast dies, and Pellinore would lose that which drove him to travel, to stop at the castles of befriended kings, to become docile, stagnant and lifeless. If Pellinore has the spirit I imagine the King to have, to be confined after lifetimes of purposeful freedom would kill him quicker than any mythical beast.
To quest requires a willing, even reluctantly willing, adventurer. Once that taste of freedom and adventure has been had, many don’t want to go back. Forget Campbell’s Hero’s Journey for a minute–a person so greatly changed by experience can’t go back to the culture of what used to be. People who can weather the adversity and growth that a quest poses don’t stay in old cycles for long. They know there is something different, something better out there because they have sought it, found it, lived it, even for the briefest of moments.
A Quest is an Initiation, a rite of passage–these aren’t limited to armored young men outside the passage of time. Pellinore is eternal–we are not. Yet, we experience cycles, changes, pressured times in our life. We go through multiple crucibles, like being melted down and when your metal cools, you are the same, and also something completely new. I chose “Quests” to embody that process–it is ongoing and each experience can prepare us for the next chapter of our life and growth.
Now let us address “Hungry Heart”--originating from an anonymously written poem that I found over a decade ago. The original version was written for a feminine perspective, so I have taken the liberty to relate it with they/them pronouns because it can be powerfully inspiring for any human expression.
It’s said they’re made of storm cells
And a wild wolf’s hungry heart,
That they’ve learned the lightning’s secret
To ripping darkened skies apart,
The Power of their presence
Can bring the mountains to their knees,
Their song is one of chaos
As they stir the angry seas.
But if you’ve met, you’d be none the wiser
Since they are also born of light,
Another face amongst the crowd;
The hidden hiding in plain sight.
Great Power doesn't always come
Inside the forms that you’d assume,
But you would never doubt their strength
When they are howling at the moon.
This poem unveils an individual of profound depth, possessed of a potent and captivating force—an embodiment of strength and enchantment amidst a realm shrouded in shadows. Amidst a sea of faces, they draw every gaze and command rapt attention with their words. Within them, a unique kernel of wisdom resides, one so potent that its realization could quake the very foundations of the earth. Their potential for transformation and advancement knows no bounds. Radiating with luminosity, they become an agent of positive metamorphosis, fostering well-being not solely for themselves, but for their greater community and world.
What if that random stranger you didn’t say hello to while walking down the street was this person? It could be the grocery store restocker, or the waitress who brought you your coffee. It could be anyone, but… what if it was you?
A “Hungry Heart” is a person with the fire, the desire, in their heart. That powerful spark that sings within the chest. For many it is so quiet, nigh on silent, but I guarantee it is there. Each and every person has the ability to become something more. There is always risk with change, but what if the first step is literally a step–out the door, down a new path, up a beautiful mountain? We all start with a hungry heart, trying to find meaning, purpose, happiness, strength–you name it.
And so we have “Hungry Heart Quests” and your guide and coach, a “Howling Heart”. Hear my call, join me in becoming more than we were before.
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