Litha

The wound is the place where the Light enters you.

Rumi

And so it begins – the Light is offering herself in her fullness today. I must thank her for she thaws the rigidness in my bones, the stiffness of winter. I don’t know what to offer her in return; all I have is this flow – words that pour out of a sacred place within. It’s not a place of the mind, of thinking, but a place of stillness and wonder. 

Today I came to the forest to receive the blessings that the summer solstice brings with the Light. With it comes the whisper and promise of the return to the dark. 

I cherish this – the smell of wood and soil. The air is rich and alive. It draws me in as if I can grasp a world hidden within this forest – I am almost able to reach for it. 

The forest reminds me of when I was a little girl. I remember this smell of pine trees and moss. 

I remember following my father on the forest paths in the midst of summer, seeking to reach to the top of the mountain. I was only five and my meager feet would tire often. Nevertheless, my father would compel me to keep going. But what I felt then was not awe or reverence for the beauty of the forest. I was frightened. My father’s stories followed us to the top of the mountain – stories about wolves and bears and the dangers lurking within the dark crevices of the woods. The Romanian mountains were brimming with uncertainty. If you see wolves or the bears, lie down on the ground and pretend you’re dead. Play dead. My father would steadily warn me. 

The thing is, I have been playing dead for a long time now. The wolves from his stories took after me, accompanying me through my teens and early twenties. No matter where I was, they would be there lurking. I grew to learn it’s not just the forest that is a terrifying place. My world was never safe. The wolves shaped themselves differently: on some days moulding into a stifling sadness, on other days transforming into a bold voice within professing my inadequacy. In an attempt to save myself, I played dead, over and over again. 

It took me years to return to the forest. To crave these trees and their shadow, the narrows paths and the river sculpting its way through. 

Today I came to ask forgiveness – to the earth and every rock that holds in it a silent strength, to every leaf that opens into a perfect humbleness, to these birds that come and go, gifting their songs of secrecy.

On my way here I have learnt to never play dead again. Those wolves we fear have important stories to tell. Hearing them requires a certain bravery of heart. To play dead is to reject those parts of ourselves that are needing the most love. Now I run with the wolves – my shadows – that are guiding me towards a life seeded in truth and meaning. I sit and listen to the fear, to the stories that pain has to tell me. 

Today I choose to give my past a different meaning for the darkness was necessary to bring me here. I choose to take the hand of the little girl within me, hold her close, instil in her a trust for this forest. I wish for her to thread the places that scared her the most, to trust the veiled mind of nature. 

Now I believe with certainty that all I have ever searched for is to be found right here planted in the moss, and the roots, or perhaps hanging on the branches – a secret blessing.