Some creatures buried their instincts too deep to hear. They tried to completely drown out the instincts that kept them alive through the evolutionary branches. They, too, feared change.
The trick was to balance, to find a place for instincts in a changing universe. The trick was to remain adaptive. The Wreets understood balance. Their instincts connected them with the land.
A disturbance approached. A large thing rushed toward a young Wreet, busily munching its morning meal. The child was content. It had not learned the proper level of wariness. Panic bit the surrounding Wreets. They charged. They snapped their beaks, and drew blood. The danger hopped away from the young Wreet, and slapped its ankle before it stumbled onward. Wreets fussed over other Wreets to make sure all was settled. A lesson had been handled. The young Wreet had further learned how to balance awareness and contentment.
The Wreets resumed their Purpose.
*~*
Puddle and I crossed the bridge without “accidentally” falling in the river. If we hurried, we would arrive at the Cedar seminar with, perhaps, a minute and a half to spare. The water looked so nice, though.
We passed the Birch camp at a distance. A mysterious nervousness tapped my shoulder, but hid when I turned my head. The Birches seemed preoccupied with swaying in the morning breeze.
Yellow lady slippers peeked from the liminal space at the edge of the forest. Wild sweet peas met us in the meadow. Bergamot nodded to primrose and clover, while milkweed and butterfly bush blushed at each other. Puddle started skipping, and I joined immediately. It was a skipping-in-sunshine roll-down-hills sort of day.
“Whaow!” I swapped at my ankle, where something had drawn blood. “There are either strange bugs or sharp grasses around these parts.”
“Let us not snail around to find out,” advised Puddle as we leaped onward.
We ran through the grasses like gazelles on a mission. The sun smiled on us, but the horizon held rainy prospects. Thunder thought about telling a story from a distance as we leaped over rocks, who poked through the wildflowers.
“Oh,” breathed Puddle.
We were engulfed in the dome of serenity that emanated from the Stone Circle.
Thirty-two boulders were arranged in a pattern, and held the thoughts of everyone who had ever stopped for a moment and shared their energy. Pure intention was built into this space. We learned the true meaning of sacred space as Puddle and I stood like silent stumps. We felt it between our atoms and beyond our bones. Ancestors had passed over these hills. They left moments, and memories. They imbued the land with reverence.
I felt the strength of this place. The place itself knew exactly what it was, even before the boulders had been positioned. It knew what it was beyond all comprehension but its own. In a way, that was true for anyone. If we listen to ourselves, truly listen, we can hear all that we are. Our deepest selves are wild and beautiful. This sacred circle reminded me of that. Furthermore, when we think thoughts of reverence at places and each other, our deepest, wildest, strongest selves emerged.
A condensed essence of the area emanated from the stone that sat in the center of the circle. It looked ready to get up and greet the beings standing about this morning. It would give a hug to anyone who wanted one, and smile to the ones who didn’t. Even trees wanted hugs. On Earth, that tree-hugging title was free for anyone realistic enough to be familiar with the fact that trees had power. To trade hugs with a tree was to understand the exchange of energy within a hug.
We smelled dried cedar, sage, and sweetgrass burning in seashells around the circle. They all were purifying in subtly diverse ways. As I passed the cedar, I felt rooted in the ground, and all that was troubling dropped away. In the smoke of sage, a mountain gust blew away any negative energy that had attached itself to me. The sweetgrass filled me with robust energy.
Several trees from each clan swayed in the wind around the edges of the circle. Many were younger saplings, learning their ways in the world. It looked like someone dumped coffee grounds around many of their roots. I was glad trees liked coffee in the morning, too. It had been a long night. I noticed a Birch, conversing with Oak, notice me. I nearly changed my path, but Cedar began speaking, and we all gathered near.
~
Welcome. Settle your trunk in this sacred moment we will create together.
We are here to make ourselves whole, and to experience being a part of the whole. We are singular pieces living singular lives alone, while together we are simultaneously an infinite amount of energy existing collectively as one. We are the same and we are different. We come with our own stories. We are squeezed from the field of energy that exists everywhere. We are condensed to the wavelengths and frequencies that make our bodies matter. We grow toward the star which gives us life, and we carry our stories.
Our roots grow in darkness, below the soil. We might be reluctant to acknowledge that darkness. If all we were was light, we would live ungrounded. We would become weak and withered. If we lost our darkness, we would lose ourselves. It makes us strong, as long as we work symbiotically with our darkness and our sun.
We have come together today to cleanse our halves and wholes. We will listen and learn from the parts that scare us and the parts that hold us together. Our space here is safe. To immerse within, let us feel at peace with our surroundings.
Listen to the sounds all around. Conversations from the camps might drift over. Bugging bugs and squeaking limbs in the breeze might distract the peace in our space. Let them be ok. Let them pass around you. Feel the silence in you. Your thoughts drip off your leaves. Your worries blow away like incense in the wind. Feel your space.
Feel the very fact you have life. Feel the energy that is condensed to make your body, and the magical processes that direct each twig, each finger, move.
Listen to the rush of energy from deep within the center of the planet. It bubbles forth from the core of the world. Feel it going through your roots, your trunk, and reaching from your branches beyond the stars. It connects you with the ground. It makes you steady and sure. It gives you the power to trust. Know you are an integral part of something big, and old.
Feel the energy of the stars reaching back down. Feel it enter through your canopy, through the top of your head. It fills you with light and possibilities. Feel the glow when your heart is kissed by the magic of the stars. It lights your intuition.
Feel star energy mingle with core energy, and know balance.
Feel your essence. Feel that you do have an essence and that it is a beautiful thing, no matter how dirty it may have gotten along the way. Flow through yourself to find the tarnished areas, the spots of guilt or frustration, of regrets and abandonment. Take a moment to search for potential hidden gifts in those tarnished spots.
Feel your ability to cleanse those moments. Be still, and think into those memories. Pour your love into those memories. Your own healing love and acceptance shines your tarnished spots. Be patient. Give yourself time. Let yourself shine. Remember beauty.
Know there is someone who loves you, and that it is you. Nothing can take that away from you.
Feel the greenness within this stone circle. Green is a powerful color. It appears when photosynthesis changes sunlight into sugar. Green is change. It has the ability to change harming thoughts into nurturing ones. Become green. Let it glow within your heart and radiate to your extremities. Let it glide through your veins. It is the sap that keeps us alive. Feel its fresh mint, and juniper twang. Feel it as the mist on the mountain, and the rain after a month and a half of drought. Let the clarity of green grow and garner your creative aspects. Let it flow through your limbs, gifting all you touch with love and respect.
Take a moment to bask in your light.
Feel into your own bubble of space. Like invisible vines, or arms, extend your aura outward and cleanse that space. Then use your branches, or arms, to sweep up the hurt that makes you stuck, or sick. Sweep up everyone else’s expectations. Pry up that gunk left on your metaphoric
al doorstep, and have a look at it. Pause. Question it. Decide if you are the one limiting yourself. Decide if you have taken these things into the image in which you see yourself. Are they part of your story?
It is time to edit. Decide if you want those ideas to stay, or if you have had enough. If you want them to leave, gather them up. Use your mind to scan yourself. Maybe there are only one or two ideas sticking to you. Use your twigs, your fingers, to pick off these stealers of energy, these leeches, these predators. They feed off your life-force. If you feel there are many, use more of your branches, your whole hands to scoop them up. A calm motion will gather this energy together.
Prepare to send these stealers away. You choose how to send them, and where to send them.
You may ask the ground to take them. The ground is big and old and can handle the transmutation. The ground is accustomed to the cycle of growth and decomposition. The ground knows life and death. It knows change is constant.
You may choose to let these stealers lay in the ground, decomposing.
You may choose to send them down to the mantle of the planet, or to a volcano. Hold your twigs or your palms to the ground until you feel them on their way. Let the furnace inside the planet burn them to ash. Use intention to speak with the planet. Ask it to transmute these sinks of energy to something beautiful.
Listen to yourself. If your intuition says to do something different, follow it.
Shake your branches, shake your hands to rid yourself of their residue. Later, you may want to rinse them in rain or river water.
Pause to appreciate your cleansing.
Go back within yourself and find the darkness that remains. This likely is a frightening being. It is the embodiment of thoughts and patterns, yearning and desires, actions. They are you, but you fear them. Perhaps you hate those parts of yourself.
Be patient, as this darkness may be buried below the deepest caverns. It is there to protect you. Once you accept it, you can have greater power over it.
Tell it that you know it is there. Say ‘I know you exist. You are me, and we will work together to heal’.
Settle any thoughts of harming it, or sending it away. It is part of you, and you need it as much as you need breath. It has kept you safe, but it can keep you from shining.
Use your mind and intuition to put it under control. Respect your darkness for what it is. Love it. Feel your control. Maybe you think it gets things wrong. Tell it you love it, for that’s what it needs. And you need it. Your darkness keeps you whole. It can tell you important things.
Sit in silence for a while. What is it telling you?
Keep listening. Still.
Then return, but stay meditative for a moment more. Take time to feel your space.
Perhaps, throughout your life, pieces of your spirit have broken off. Some part of you knows, and misses those pieces. You can call those pieces back.
Lean forward and take a breath. Lean backward and take another breath. Lean to one side, and breathe deep. Lean to the other side, with another breath. These actions bring your pieces back to you. These movements help solidify the healing you have accomplished.
Reclaim yourself.
Return from your inward journey, and breathe deep of the outer world.
Feel your essence again. Feel your life flowing through your body. Feel scuffed, strong, healed, and free. Feel connected. Feel your sun face and hidden roots. Feel your light and your darkness. Feel full, and whole.
Be still until you are ready. And until next time, may the sun shine on your leaves, and the rain soak toward your roots.
~
My eyes were like infants. Everything appeared as if for the first time. The distant scent of rain, the ant on my foot, the whispering wind were all full of wonder. A bee bumbled by on its magical journey of gathering and dancing.
The stones we sat around were fresh with spring after an eon of blizzard. The trees frolicked like lambs, yet none had moved from their spots. It was in their faces, and their swaying limbs. I felt it too. We were filled with movement without moving.
I was kitten clumsy, and elegant as a heron in a lily pond. Puddle glanced over and grinned, and we looked at each other with crescent moon eyes that smiled our experience.
After I scooped up any freeloading energy things, I deposited them in the molten innards of the planet to burn to ashes.
I, then, acknowledged my own darkness. I saw despair inside myself. I saw the crushing boredom, and the uncontrolled fight for control. I held anger and fear. Selfish. Lazy. Cruel. Thoughtless. Regret that punched me in the heart any time I saw disappointment in anyone’s eyes.
This darkness confronted me. It congealed into an image, and raised its hackles. It showed its gleaming, stinking teeth. Its strength equaled my own, because it was me. It was the me that hid when the world got too big and dangerous. It was the me that couldn’t handle people hurting each other and not listening. It was the me that wanted to stay safe in a scary, painful outside world.
My darkness did keep me safe in a way. Those qualities were my fortress. I had stood in front of what I thought were my faults. I stared with steady eyes. They stared back. I told them I loved them. I had to love them. I wanted to endorse my life and my choices. I had to accept myself, because I didn’t want to accept being anyone else.
I reached out and touched my darkness. Tears leaked out of my eyes and splashed all over my lap. Those tears released the pain that kept those memories at bay. With the pain evaporated, I had power over my heart. The power of my freed heart filled my eyes with other tears. They were tears of change and beauty. They were tears of love.
Newton’s third law spoke for physical objects. Every action had a reaction. It worked just as well beyond physical. I changed the story I told myself. I saw how I could cause my experience of the universe to change. My darkness was okay. I was okay. My ability to love had expanded.
Puddle looked like the weight he picked up from all of the worlds he had traveled through had risen like rain off hot cement. He wiped at his eyes, too.
“I forgave myself,” he confided. “I thought I had before, but not really. Healing is a process. I was so angry with myself for running away from my home, even though running kept me safe. I was angry at not being heard. I kept moving. Moving would keep me in front of my memories. I could not see them, and they could not hurt me. I was the one who abandoned my family. But they were not listening, so really, they had abandoned me as well. It left an emptiness in me. I filled that emptiness with anger because that was safe. But it left me broken.”
“You were hurting for a long time,” I empathized.
“And then some,” he replied. “And I thought I had forgiven myself. It was not enough. I had to fill that hole with love. Filling it with anger kept me in the past. Filling it with love hurts, but heals.”
“We need to hug Cedar full of our thanks. My heart was hurting, too. The world can be scary. I hide my thoughts a lot because of the resistance I feel from other people. Silence kept my thoughts safe, but made me feel like garbage because they were my thoughts that got judged. That fear of judgement kept me silent. It made me angry too.”
“Fear and anger keep you safe, but silent.”
“Yes. I’m getting better at blocking out judgment. Judging keeps us safe, in its own way. Being wrong is unacceptable in many circles. Being wrong could mean being shunned. Nobody wants to be shunned. Sometimes people joke and say, I don’t care what your friends say about you, I still like you. I think that joke gouges at the very center of the person being joked at. It’s a way to control that person. People build up stories of How It Should Be, and anything outside of that is for judging. Otherwise, one might have to reevaluate one’s thinking. One might have to question whether their story of How It Should Be is right for everyone. Different doesn’t mean wrong.”
Puddle added, “We go through our lives wanting to be accepted. We are aware that at any moment, everything could change. If one belief is wrong, then what ot
her beliefs might be wrong? Unexamined thinking gets us in trouble, while examining that thinking can overwhelm us easily if it has had a chance to build up and up. All things in their good time.”
I agreed, “Life takes a lot of thinking. I really connected to when Cedar said that no one can take away your love from yourself. They’ve tried, but I’ve fought back tooth and nail. But it doesn’t always work. I’ve judged myself too harshly out of fear. I’d get at me before anyone else could.”
“That way nobody could hurt you more than you hurt yourself,” Puddle paraphrased.
“At the same time, that’s not fair. Why would I want to hurt myself at all? I love myself. I want to evaluate, not judge myself. I want to be realistic and patient with myself. I want to examine my thinking. Last night, while dancing, I decided to let all my decisions pass by my heart. That way, I know I’m doing a good thing for myself, and for the worlds.”
“How can you tell it is your true heart?”
“Puddle, you make a solid point. Each instance has its own dilemma. I’ll just have to practice and keep practicing. Choices and actions can have unexpected consequences, as well. On top of that, how do we know when we have enough information to make a proper choice?”
“Well, we will just have to burn those bridges when we get to them.”
“And continue this conversation at a later moment. For now, let us race through the puffed dandelions, letting all the wishes free.”
So we did. The wind was just right to make trails of dandelion magic explode in sweeping, isosceles triangles behind our skipping toes. They kissed the sky with all their swirling secrets.
*~*
Over the hills and back toward the center of the festival grounds we flew. A pinnately compounded leafy friend was wading through the meadow as Puddle and I raced by. It was Rowan, with grapevines draped around its branches. We circled around and slowed our pace.
“Hello. This is Puddle, and I am Birch. Yesterday we came from a rain puddle, and we have been enjoying this world. It is beautiful.”
Rowan waved in the wind, and spoke, “Welcome. I heard of your entrance to this world. Most remarkable.”