And just know that everything will hold you perfectly.
Come as you are,
Not as the voice you use on the phone,
Not as the voice you use at the school gate or in a meeting or when you're being reasonable,
Not even as the voice that you're using to listen to me right now.
Just arrive,
Just land in the moment with me.
Let your body find the ground,
The chair.
The floor,
The earth,
Whatever is holding you.
Just let it all go.
And come sit with me.
There is no job here to do today.
We are going to dive right in.
So close your eyes if that's the doorway that you like to shut.
If not,
Then soften your gaze so that it's not focusing on anything in particular.
Notice your breath.
I don't like to tell anybody how to breathe,
But I want you to focus on it.
Deepen it.
Perhaps hold it a little bit where it feels comfortable.
Let your breath find its flow.
Nice.
There is a sound in you that has never been heard.
Not by a family member,
Not by a lover.
Not even by the mirror.
It's been waiting under everything you've ever said.
Every apology.
Every conversation of small talk.
Every carefully chosen word.
All of it has been standing in front of that sound,
Keeping it warm,
Keeping it safe,
Keeping it Today,
It doesn't have to keep quiet anymore.
You are not here to perform anything,
Not for me,
Not for the version of yourself who is watching to see if this works.
There is nowhere to arrive except here.
There is nothing to get right except your own breath.
I want you to notice your throat.
Not as an instrument.
Not even as a problem to solve.
Just as flesh.
Notice its softness.
And it's rings.
Old as the first creature that ever called out in the dark and was answered.
Rest your hand there if you want to.
Perhaps quietly say.
I know you're in there.
And then when you're ready.
Not before.
When you are ready.
Let's take a walk.
We don't walk into working like this alone.
We're going to call in the ones who hold the edges of this circle.
So that whatever moves through this activation within these walls are made welcome.
And made known.
So we call out loud,
If you can,
Or in a whisper or even in the silence of your mind.
Whichever feels more comfortable.
Know that the calling will last.
So you can turn to the east or face the east or picture it if you want.
And we say.
To the east where the thread first catches the light.
Where the day is still only a rumour,
Where the first voice ever called was still just breath waiting to become sound.
Hail and welcome.
To the south,
Where the fire keeps the loom warm,
Where the threads take its colour,
Where courage is spun into something before it is ever even woven.
To the West,
Where the water remembers every voice that has ever been drowned out,
Talked over,
Told to hush.
And it gives it back eventually with the tide.
To the north,
Where the old stones keep the pattern,
Where the bones of the land hold the shape of every song that was ever sung to them,
Before the words were even there for singing.
Hail and welcome to the East.
Hail and welcome to the South.
Hail and welcome to the West.
Hail and welcome to the North.
To what is below.
Root,
Cave,
The darkest soil where the weavers keep their looms.
To what is above.
Star Spirit,
The wide listening sky that has heard every voice that was ever lost and has kept them safe for us.
Hail and welcome.
To the centre,
To you.
To the one thread that only you can spin.
The one thread that no one else in all of time has spun.
Or will ever spin again.
Because it's yours.
Hail and welcome.
The circle is cooled.
The edges are hell.
Nothing needs to be afraid of what happens next.
We walk forward.
In light,
In power and in sovereignty.
I want you to pull a picture into your mind.
Visualize a hillside.
Yours or one that finds you.
Mine is Cornish Granite.
Somewhere that the land has kept its own council for a very long time.
Feel the grind of your hillside beneath your feet.
Look up to the skies and notice the weather.
Listen for the signs of nature.
And then let your eyes be drawn to an opening.
Within the hillside.
Slow.
Dark.
Easy to miss if you're not looking for it.
But you were looking.
Because some part of you has been looking for this doorway for a very long time.
Make your way towards it.
Notice the ground changes underfoot,
Becomes cooler.
The closer that you get,
The air seems to change.
And then right at the threshold,
You can smell the wet stone and something older than that,
Minerals,
Something mossy.
A little like the inside of a shell if you held it to your ear.
Stand at the mouth of the key for a moment.
You don't have to go in yet.
Just look.
Somewhere inside,
Something is working.
You hear it before you see it.
A soft,
Rhythmic knocking.
Wood against wood.
A beater,
Striking a thread home.
Over and over,
As patient as your heartbeat.
That's her.
The one who's been waiting.
When you're ready,
Dunk your head,
Let's go in.
The passage narrows and then opens to become wide.
And there she is.
She doesn't look up straight away.
She's mid-row.
Hands moving,
The loom in front of her,
Strung with more threads than you can even count.
Some the color of blood,
Some the color of moss.
Some so pale.
You think they weren't there.
Until the light catches them.
She's humming as she works.
Quietly under her breath.
A tune with no name.
But you recognize it.
It's been running under the knock of the beater the whole time.
So low only you notice because you are so close.
This is The Weaver.
Cool or that?
Or call her nothing.
Or call her name that rises in you.
Whatever comes,
Let it come.
She's been at this loom since before your grandmother's grandmother had a voicebox.
She was at it before the first word.
And she will be at it after the last one.
She's in no hurry.
And she's not going anywhere.
And this matters.
She's waiting.
Specifically for you.
Watch your hands for a moment.
Notice how sure they are.
Notice that not one thread on the loom is the same as another.
And not one of them.
Is wasted.
Eventually in her own time,
Not yours.
She looks up.
Let whatever passes between you happen.
Nod,
A word,
Nothing at all perhaps but recognition.
You don't need to perform an introduction.
She already knows exactly who you are.
She's been holding a thread with your name on it since the day you were born.
She gestures to a stone,
A stool,
A patch of soft ground near the loom.
And you sit.
You'll be here for a while.
Before she'll let you near the loom.
There's work to do.
Not hard work,
Just honest work.
She points to a basket at her feet,
Woven from the same thread as everything else here.
It's full.
Over full of voices.
Every voice that was ever laid on top of yours,
Every voice you swallowed your own to make room for,
One by one,
She's going to lift them out.
You don't have to fight them.
You don't even have to answer to them.
Just let each one be seen.
Thanked for what it tried to do for you.
And then set down.
She lifts up the first ball of thread.
It's the voice that taught you to take up less space in a room,
In a sentence,
Even in your own throat.
Maybe it came from someone who loved you badly.
Maybe it came from.
.
.
A hundred small moments that nobody remembers but you.
Look at it in her hands.
Let the smaller,
Younger you.
Remember.
Is it smaller?
Than you remembered it now.
Voices usually are.
Once they're not living in your chest anymore.
Thank you.
It thought it was keeping you safe.
Give thanks to it.
Then watch her set it down.
Not destroying it.
Just putting it to one side.
It doesn't get to sit on the loom anymore.
The next voice out of the basket is smoother.
Practice.
This is the one that taught you to soften everything true you ever said.
Until it was easy to swallow.
The one that turned your no into a maybe.
And your anger into.
And just a bit tired.
Let her hold it up.
Let it be exactly as reasonable sounding and exactly as costly as it always was.
Thank it too.
If you can.
Then let it go down onto the pile with the rest.
This one,
This next one.
Number three.
It's louder.
It's the chorus,
Not the solo.
Every voice that ever measured you against someone else's and found you wanting.
Every Why Can't I Be More Like?
Watch the weaver hold the whole tangle of threads of it at arm's length.
It almost looks smaller out there than it ever felt on the inside.
She adds it to the others.
This next one.
This next ball of thread wears your own face.
It always does.
It's the one that got in first,
Every time you tried to sing.
Or right.
Or speak.
Or ask.
Or had the audacity to want something.
It called itself protection.
It called itself realism.
Let the weaver lift it free.
Gently.
This one especially gently.
Because some part of it.
Was really trying to keep you from harm.
We thank this bowl of threads for its long service,
And we let it rest with the pile,
Because it's allowed to rest too.
Now the basket has emptied itself in its own order,
Not yours.
Let whatever else needs lifting out from it.
Perhaps it's a parent's voice,
A teacher's,
An old lover's.
Or your own voice at seven years old that told you to hush.
You don't need to name every ball of thread in the basket out loud.
Just let the weaver's hands keep moving.
Lifting.
Thanking.
And setting them down.
We're trusting that she knows which ones are yours to release today.
Which ones?
Will require another visit.
Remember to keep breathing.
Slow and steady.
Just continue to observe.
As she shifts through the basket.
When the basket is empty.
Or empty enough,
She will set it aside.
Now move your attention to listening.
Notice what the cave sounds like.
Quieter.
Not silent.
The beater still knocks as she returns to her weaving.
Water still drips somewhere.
Your own heart still keeps its own time.
Quieter in a way,
More steady.
As if the rhythm has a shape to it.
A held shape.
Space with.
Ruminant.
This is what quiet actually is.
Not the absence of sound or thought.
It's the absence of everybody else's noise.
And it's where your noise is supposed to live.
Sit inside that quiet for as long as you need.
If you wanna take a pause.
When you're ready.
To earn your attention.
Back to the loop.
You can come in a little bit closer.
She'll let you.
Take a look at the threads properly this time.
Colors running the whole length.
Taught,
Patient.
Going somewhere you can't yet see the end of.
Threads working in and out,
In and out,
Building something you've only ever seen the corner of.
Somewhere in all of that.
And she'll show you where.
Or you'll simply not.
There is one thread.
That we are looking for today.
It won't be the loudest.
Not necessarily the brightest.
Unmistakably,
Structurally,
Yours.
And it will call to you.
One thread in the whole loom.
If it was ever to be removed entirely.
The pattern would remember it and forever leave a gap.
Once you find it.
Look at its color.
Don't decide what it should be.
Look at what it is.
Notice the texture of it.
Rough,
Smooth,
Fine as hair,
Perhaps it's thick as rope.
Notice whether it hums faintly,
The way a plucked string keeps humming after the hand has already moved on.
This is your voice.
Not your speaking voice,
Not your singing voice.
It's the voice below,
Underneath those.
The one that was there before you even learnt to talk,
And the one that will continue.
After you stop.
It's been on this loom the whole time.
Woven in since the beginning.
It was never missing.
Perhaps it was just quiet.
Under everything that basket was carrying.
The weaver's hand hovers near it now.
She's not touching it.
Like tuning an instrument before the first note,
Energetically.
Her hand hovers.
Before.
She plays it.
There's one more thing.
Some voices don't come in words,
Some come in the old tongue,
The one that was spoken before language had rules,
Before it made sense to anybody except the throat that was making the sounds.
If a sound wants to move through you now that isn't a word,
Perhaps it's a tone.
A syllable.
A sigh.
A language without dictionary,
Then let it.
This is the space for that.
No one is listening for meaning here.
There's you and the sign of your truth.
Whatever moved,
However it moved,
Even if you felt that nothing moved at all.
No,
It was received.
Let that settle.
Let your breath come back into its own quiet rhythm.
For the weaver is ready now,
With her hand still resting near your thread.
She looks at you once more.
The same look as before,
The one that says,
I know you.
When you're ready,
She takes your thread between finger and thumb.
And she plucks it once just to show you how it's done.
In a whisper.
She says.
Heelakashonokooreyamokuosa.
Hiläkönnon kuoren kaasi.
Hom Nakani Sano Kore.
He Nakasho.
Henakasho.
Hamnakarina.
And she lets go.
And she gestures to you.
Your hand,
Your fingers.
Your threat.
Reach out and find it.
You'll know it.
Still humming faintly from where she touched it.
When you're ready.
Not before.
Pluck it for yourself.
Feel where that note lands with you.
Not necessarily in your ears,
But under them.
In your body,
Maybe.
Was it in the chest?
Was it in the space between your sternum?
Or low in your belly?
Or right at the base of your throat,
Where the voice actually begins,
Long before it becomes sound?
Where did you feel it?
Because it's somewhere between your tongue and your heart.
Perhaps it was from the tips of your toes to the top of your head.
This is not a new voice being given to you.
Nothing is given.
It was only remembered.
And you're the one who remembered it.
The weaver simply shows you the way.
It was and still is.
A sound that you know.
That you remember.
You don't have to do anything with this note,
This tone right now.
You don't have to sing it.
You don't have to prove that you can use it for anything.
It only asks to be heard once,
By you.
In this cave.
Plucked once by a weaver who has kept it safe,
And once by your own hand.
Your attention comes back to the weaver,
Who's been watching this whole time.
She nods.
The way you'd nod.
At the end of a first lesson,
Not the last one.
Because this is the first remembering.
Voice work has layers.
This thread has more in it than one plug can hold.
And she will always be here.
At this loom.
Whenever you're ready to come back.
And look at the rest of its patterns.
Let it keep humming the way a struck bell keeps ringing long after the hand lets go.
The weaver goes back to her work.
The rhythm of the beater returns,
Not.
Steady,
Unhurried,
Weaving your one plucked thread back in amongst the others where it belongs.
Where it's always going to end up eventually.
Where it belongs.
You can stay and watch a while.
There is nothing else required of you.
Take some time now to notice without straining for it,
If anything has shifted in your chest,
In your throat,
In the quality of the quietness around you.
Also you don't need an answer today.
Some threads can take a while to feel into than others.
Some differences you will notice a few weeks from now,
Mid-sentence maybe,
Something you'd have never said before in a voice that sounds unmistakably structurally solid.
And like you,
Not a new version of you.
A very ancient version of you.
That's allowed to happen and it's allowed to happen slowly.
Nothing here is ever about speed.
When you're ready,
It's time to leave the cave.
We'll just take a moment before that too.
Realize.
What we've called today.
What we've reconnected to.
To what is above,
Star,
Spirit,
Wide listening sky.
Thank you for hearing us.
To what is below.
Root,
Cave,
The darkest soil where the weaver keeps her loom.
Thank you for holding us.
To the north and the old stones that keep the pattern.
Thank you for remembering us.
To the West and the water that gives lost voices back as tide.
Thank you for returning.
What was ours?
To the scythe and the fire that warms the threads before they were spun.
Thank you for the courage.
The east and the first light on that very thirst,
Fred,
That came.
Thank you for the beginning that this was.
We return to the center.
Thank you for staying this whole way through.
Thank you for letting yourself be quiet enough,
Slow enough and steady enough.
To hear one true night.
Under all that noise.
The circle is closed,
But not unbroken.
Merry meet,
Merry part,
And merry meet again,
Perhaps in this cave or another.
I want you to.
.
.
Come out of the cave from the way you came in.
Duck your head at the threshold.
Feel that air change again.
Notice the difference.
In the energy.
From inside out.
When you come out of that cave.
Stand a moment outside and let that ordinary light,
Whatever light is around you,
Find your face.
And then begin to start to feel the room that you're actually in.
On this timeline right now.
The chair,
The floor,
The weight of your hands,
Perhaps wiggle your fingers or roll your shoulders,
Let your breath deepen.
Ordinary and yet unremarkable in through your nose and out through your mouth.
In your own time.
No rush.
Nothing is waiting.
That can't wait a minute more.
So let your eyes open if they're already closed or still closed.
You came in carrying a basket full of everyone's voices.
You're leaving with the memory of one thread,
Plucked and remembered,
Humming quietly under everything you say from here.
That's enough for one crossing.
Hail and farewell until next time,
Until another thread calls you back.
