Feel the weight of your body right now.
Just that.
The actual physical weight of you pressing down into whatever is beneath you.
Your heels,
The back of your calves,
Your hips,
Your shoulders,
The back of your head.
You made it to the end of this day.
And whatever it asked of you,
Whatever it took,
That's done now.
It belongs to the day that's closing.
And the day is closing.
I want to take you somewhere tonight.
Somewhere that exists at the edge of sleep and the edge of the world.
A place that people have been finding their way to for thousands of years when they needed to rest something deeper than the body.
Before we go,
Breathe with me.
In through your nose for four counts.
One,
Two,
Three,
Four.
Hold it gently.
Seven counts.
One,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Five,
Six,
Seven.
And out through your mouth all the way for eight.
One,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Five,
Six,
Seven,
Eight.
In two,
Three,
Four.
Hold completely until there's nothing left to give.
You're already somewhere different than you were 60 seconds ago.
Now,
Close your eyes if they aren't already and let me show you where we're going.
Imagine you are standing at the tree line.
You've never seen a sky quite like this one.
It isn't one color,
It's 20 colors happening at the same time.
Deep orange bleeding into violet,
Bleeding into the first.
Tentative blue-black of night.
And on the horizon,
Where the canopy meets the last of the light,
Everything is rimmed in gold.
The air here is alive.
It's warm,
Not uncomfortably warm.
The kind of warmth that asks nothing of you,
That simply holds you.
You breathe it in and you can taste the green of it,
The earth.
Something flowering that you can't name.
And something else.
Wood smoke.
You follow it.
Not because someone told you to,
Because something in you,
Something older than thought,
Already knows where it leads.
Through the first line of trees,
Your feet finding the path without searching for it,
The forest closing gently around you,
Not trapping you,
Receiving you.
And there,
In a clearing where the trees open to a circle of open sky,
A fire.
And beside it,
An old man.
He doesn't look up when you arrive.
He doesn't need to.
He knew you were coming before you did.
He has been tending this fire for longer than you have been alive.
And everyone who has ever needed to find it,
Has found it.
In their own time.
In their own way.
He is a medicine man.
Keeper of the old songs.
Keeper of the Icarus.
The sacred melodies that the plants themselves taught to the healers centuries ago,
To heal what ordinary sleep cannot reach.
He gestures to the ground beside the fire.
And you sit.
The fire is warm on your face.
Feel that warmth right now.
Let it be real.
Your face.
Your chest.
Your hands resting open in your lap.
Your shoulders drop.
They were carrying something.
They don't need to carry it here.
The old man begins to sing,
Very quietly,
A melody without words that you feel you have heard before.
Not in this life perhaps,
But before.
In you,
That has been embraced for days.
Let's go.
The old man stops singing.
He looks toward the edge of the clearing.
And you follow his gaze.
At the tree line,
Two eyes.
They are jaguar.
You are not afraid.
I want you to notice that,
The absence of fear.
Because this animal,
This guardian of the three shawms between worlds,
Is not looking at you the way anything in your waking life looks at you.
There is no judgment in those eyes.
No expectation.
No measure of whether you are enough.
It simply sees you.
The old man murmurs something in shipibo.
And your body understands.
Feel your feet,
Heavy now,
Rooted,
As if the earth beneath the forest floor is pulling gently at your heels,
Your soles,
Your toes,
Claiming them,
Saying,
These belong to the ground tonight.
The jaguar takes one step forward and your legs release every muscle in your thighs,
Your calves,
The back of your knees,
Letting go of the effort of the day,
Letting go of the effort of standing,
Of moving,
Of going.
You don't need to go anywhere tonight.
The jaguar takes another step.
Its paws make no sound on the forest floor.
Your hips sink.
Your back,
That place where so many of us hold the weight of everything we are responsible for,
Softens.
Your belly is soft.
Chest opens.
Like a door you forgot was closed.
The jaguar is in the firelight now.
Its coat is black where the shadows fall and gold where the fire catches it.
It moves with a slowness that isn't hesitation.
It's certainty.
It knows exactly where it's going.
It has always known.
Your shoulders fall.
Your arms are heavy on whatever they rest on.
Your jaw unclenches.
You didn't know it was clenched.
Eyes behind your closed lids stop searching.
The jaguar lies down.
You feel its warmth.
Real.
It's breathing.
The old man's song returns,
Softer now.
You are going somewhere.
You can feel it happening.
That soft falling.
The forest holds its breath.
The fire speaks in its quiet language of crackle and sigh.
The jaguar's eyes.
How closed now.
The jaguar keeps watch.
Nothing passes tonight that isn't meant to.
You can go further now.
