Ghost Structures and the Longing of the Heart

There is a particular stretch of my morning walk in France that always invites me to pause. The path spills out toward a vineyard, the vines resting in their winter stillness, the sky wide open above them. And just off to the side, half-swallowed by grass and shadow, stands the remains a single, weather-beaten gate.

No wall. No arch. No house.

Just the remnant of an entrance to something that no longer exists.

It stands there with a quiet dignity, holding its place in the landscape long after its purpose has dissolved. Every time I see it, I’m struck by the same question:

What are you doing here? And why do I feel something when I look at you?

This morning, with the low sun catching the stone, it was even more dramatic and it reminded me of a line from John O’Donohue’s blessing For Longing:

“May your heart never be haunted by ghost structures of old damage.”

This poem / blessing is one I return to again and again and has inspired and closed a thousand practises and recently, as I step deeper into the work of Svecchā, it feels even more alive, almost like a guiding thread.  Today it was that particular line because this physical memory of a gateway is exactly that:

A ghost structure.  A remnant of something once meaningful, a frame for a door that led somewhere, a threshold that marked a boundary… and now stands alone, without context, yet still shaping the space around it.

And truly, don’t we all carry these? …an inner architecture we inherit

There are beliefs, wounds, memories, relationships, roles, and identities that once held structure in our lives. Some protected us. Some defined us. Some were built by others. Some collapsed suddenly, or eroded slowly, and some we simply outgrew. But their imprint remains. Sometimes they appear as an unexpected emotional reaction, a tightening in the chest, a familiar ache, a story we thought we had moved beyond but find ourselves circling again, or a pattern we didn’t realise we were still carrying.

In those moments, the heart whispers - This doesn’t quite belong here anymore - even as the old structure stands firm, casting its familiar shadow.

The Tantric teachings don’t ask us to demolish these remnants or deny they ever existed. They invite us into something more nuanced and more compassionate.

See it. Feel it. Name it. Track it - then meet it with presence.

Not the sharp-edged scrutiny of the mind, but the soft, steady clarity that arises when we are internally coherent—when breath, body, mind, and heart align enough for us to tell the truth gently. 

Coherence is not perfection - it is congruence. It is what happens when the inner system stops pulling in opposing directions and begins to move as one.

In coherence, the nervous system softens, the heart steadies, and awareness expands enough to hold both the story and the truth beyond the story. And in that clarity, the ghost structure begins to loosen its hold. And we can begin to find beauty in what remains

What I love about this lone gatepost is that it is not an eyesore. It is not a failure of maintenance. It is not wrong or bad …It is evidence.

Evidence that something once stood here.

Evidence that life reshapes itself, again and again.

And evidence that remnants can coexist with new growth without either diminishing the other.

Sometimes the remnants of our old damage are not obstacles but invitations. Markers of how far we’ve travelled and contours of the inner landscape that make us human, tender, alive. The work is not to erase them but to live beside them with awareness, grace, and freedom.

The ending of O’Donohue’s blessing has always struck me like a bell rung in the deepest part of my chest:

“May you come to accept your longing as divine urgency,

and may you know the urgency with which God longs for you.”

Longing is not deficiency.  It is not a sign that we are incomplete. It is the pulse of the soul calling us onward…a  flame lit from within, but also lit for us -from beyond us…A two-way current of desire, our longing to know ourselves, and the greater longing that calls us into that knowing.

Thats what feel this old gate post is quietly reminding me this morning

These ghost structures are not mistakes.

They are part of the map.

Part of the story.

Part of the landscape that shapes our unfolding.

Here is the full Poem …

For Longing

Blessed be the longing that brought you here
And quickens your soul with wonder.

May you have the courage to listen to the voice of desire
That disturbs you when you have settled for something safe.

May you have the wisdom to enter generously into your own unease
To discover the new direction your longing wants you to take.

May the forms of your belonging—in love, creativity, and friendship—
Be equal to the grandeur and the call of your soul.

May the one you long for long for you.

May your dreams gradually reveal the destination of your desire.

May a secret Providence guide your thought and nurture your feeling.

May your mind inhabit life with the sureness with which your body inhabits the world.

May your heart never be haunted by ghost-structures of old damage.

May you come to accept your longing as divine urgency.

May you know the urgency with which God longs for you.”

―John O'Donohue,To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings