I feel the damp movement of ancient rivers below my feet.
I feel their rumble and lapping.
Rivers long gone but energetically surging,
Cutting through stones of lost ideas.
Their water is given to creatures and frogs and lichen and the sky itself.
I feel the movement of the seasons below my feet,
The heat of summer and the frost of spring.
I feel the quiet solitude of snow-covered mountains and autumnal sheets of rain.
The large plops of water jumping from this leaf to the next,
Going home to these ancient rivers.
The floods,
The droughts,
The soft surrender in their holy rest.
There is a pulse here deep in this forest,
A resonance,
A hum,
And my heart begins to find its way into this holy rhythm,
Dancing with the hum,
The vibration,
That holy thump of life,
Persistent and infinite.
From my body to the earth,
To the sky,
To the stars and the galaxies,
This hum,
This spin,
This holy dance,
A thousand cellos,
A thousand violins,
A thousand choral voices,
All here if they ever were in this holy rave.
I stand,
Eyes closed,
Within me this orchestra,
This cacophony of life,
This ohm,
This spin,
The effulgence of energy and life,
This holy forest dancing in my being,
The singing fur needles,
Wild,
Primal,
A fertile ecosystem,
The soul's holy terrain.
I stay as long as I can until the sun goes black and the stars,
First one and then another,
Show their love for the night and they come together like lovers in a slow dance moving to the music that only if you listen deeply you can hear.
I wait until I feel the earth exhale,
Her last bit of the day's sunlight and she slips into slumber,
Her breath like the beat of an owl's wings,
Soft,
Powerful,
Deep and then just fading into the darkness.
My own breath becomes the beat of an owl's wings,
Slow and deep,
My feet like winding roots,
The water of my body moving like an ancient underground river and I am this holy forest.
