You are lying on the forest floor A deeply soft bed of thick green moss holds the shape of your body You let it take all of you You release all the tension and hold in your body And you gift it to the mossy mattress beneath you You release the tension from your eyes,
From your eyebrows and from your forehead You soften all the muscles and the skin around your eyes As you feel the moss as a pillow around your hair and your head You allow your scalp and your follicles to soften You release all tension held here You bring your attention to your breathing As the air travels in through your nose You feel a coolness to this new air You feel the warmth of the air warm from being inside You release all the tension held in your mouth,
Your jaw,
Your tongue Gently cushioning your shoulders As you lay your hands,
Your shoulders soften And you feel your chest open wider As your shoulders give themselves to the moss You allow room for your breath As each of your vertebrae of your spine releases itself to the mossy mattress beneath you You allow your hips and your pelvis to open As you release the weight of this area to the moss beneath you How your feet drop slightly to the side As you release the tension from your hips and your pelvis and your sitting bones Now allow the breath to travel down to this area The backs of your legs lay gently upon this soft mossy ground The backs of your knees and the fronts of your knees soften And all tension held in the muscles of your thighs,
Your calves,
Your ankles,
Your feet and your toes Release now You are held As you lie on the forest floor Your eyes flicker open and closed at the dappling sunlight as it breaks through in intermittent bursts Through the canopy of the leafy oak top trees that arch above you If the world was the other way up in this moment Would those big,
Strong,
Green,
Oak's leaf hands hold you as comfortably as the moss does?
So you lay for a while in those leafy,
Oak,
Green palms And you look up to see the billowing,
Green,
Mossy sky above you You return to your body and release just a little bit more tightness to the moss beneath you And you breathe out As your eyelids gently close and you drift You hear a tapping coming from above And reluctant to come out of your daytime slumber,
You open just one eye To see a blue jay perched upon the branch of the great oak just to your right Hi,
You murmur without thought Hi,
It replies As your body thinks to move towards sitting The moss instinctively shifts its cushioning And you find yourself just a little more upright Still beautifully reclined and somehow even more comfortable And not a muscle used Hi,
You say again,
Just to check the reality of this moment Hi,
Comes the reply It's time to talk,
I've been waiting for you You're right on time and yet still to come How clever you are Okay,
You say,
Where am I?
Where are we?
You are in the forest of Everlast Where the great oak forest dies and the new one grows upon Yet if you flip your perception upside down The fertile and wise deathbed of oak grows from the new oak's maturing forest It's all the same,
Is but isn't,
Was but is The new of then to come,
No bother Okay,
You say,
Tell me more Your eyes close again,
Seemingly without personal instruction And you start to feel like you may have somehow merged with the network of oak tree roots below You can sense the saturated cool darkness and the mulch of the earth that binds with your rooted limbs Are you everywhere below?
You feel a breeze travel so gently across your surface Your skin,
The forest floor,
The moss,
A tickle caresses you as one leaf touches another in play As you simultaneously blow in the breeze of the great oak's canopy In shade,
In sunbeam,
In shade,
In sunbeam You are all the leaves at once,
Warm and cool Sheltered and exposed,
Fast with open palms and youthfully unfurling You are the new leaf's delicately arising dawning stretch Opening to be greeted by your leaf family of new and of old Of then and of now You fall with full grown wisdom upon a sharp breeze As your leafiness drifts down towards the moss And the she of nature catches you giggling and embraces your fall And as the world flips again,
She honors and catches your climb You feel the fullness of family in all around you You know not where you finish and another thing begins For in this moment there is no beginning,
No end No start,
No stop,
No up,
No down,
No bottom,
No top You are it all and it is you A family free in nature's glue You are all around in this moment,
In every part Your hands,
Your leaves,
Roots,
Stems,
Soil,
Heart You breathe the breeze,
Your words birdsong Your life,
Not short,
Is a flicker of long You speak a thought,
A fall,
A climb,
A timely release to soil roots bind You are of all,
Our family dear Of blood,
Of sweat,
Of sap,
Rain,
Tear The love that holds each birth,
Each die An acorn found in the great oak's sky And with each reach down,
You bond together The earth's true breath upon the blue jay's feather Reluctant to come out of your daytime slumber You open just one eye Hi,
You say Hi,
I reply
