Far beyond the firelight of the known world.
There is an older rhythm waiting for you.
A rhythm carried through the earth itself.
Through drum skin.
Through bone.
Through the dark pulse beneath the stars.
Tonight.
You walk alone into the forest,
The trees towering black against the night sky.
The branches moving slowly in the cold wind,
While somewhere ahead.
.
.
A distant drum begins to echo through the darkness.
Slow,
Steady,
Ancient.
Like the heartbeat of something sleeping beneath the earth.
With every step.
The sound grows deeper,
Warmer.
Pulling you further beyond the edges of ordinary thought.
Beyond the noise of the waking world.
The moon hangs enormous above the trees tonight,
Silver lights spilling across moss and stone.
While sparks from unseen fires drift upward into the dark sky like spirits returning to the stars.
You begin to notice figures moving in the distance,
Shadowed silhouettes surrounding a great fire deep within the forest.
Their faces glowing amber beneath the moonlight,
Their bodies moving slowly with the rhythm of the drums.
And something ancient inside you remembers,
Not with words,
But with feeling,
With breath,
With instinct.
The drumming grows louder now,
Steady as a heartbeat.
Echoing through your chest,
Through your ribs,
Through the whole body.
Until it feels impossible to tell whether the sound is outside you or within you.
You Fire crackles wildly into the night,
Embers rising into constellations overhead.
While voices begin to hum softly beneath the rhythm.
Low.
Wordless,
Ancient as the Earth itself.
You move closer to the fire.
Warmth against your skin,
Smoke curling into the cold night air.
Cedarwood Reign.
Earth After Storms Little by little.
The weight you arrived with begins to loosen.
Old thoughts,
Old fear,
Old heaviness carried quietly for too long.
All falling away into the flames.
The drumming continues.
Deeper now,
Slower,
Hypnotic.
Like the whole forest breathing around you.
Like the earth calling the body back into itself.
Above You.
The stars turn endlessly through the darkness.
Fast.
Ancient.
Alive.
All the firelight flickers across the trees in waves of gold and shadow.
You close your eyes for a moment.
Feeling the drum echo through the body.
Through the spine.
Through the earth beneath your feet.
Until there is no separation between yourselves.
The fire,
The night,
The rhythm Only movement now,
Only breath Only the ancient pulse of the living world surrounding you.
And somewhere beyond the firelight.
Beyond the forest.
Beyond the endless turning stars.
Something inside you begins to awaken.