The Stone Being

I  put my hand upon the stone being and let my mind loosen, my heart widen, the third eye blink open. The stone being told me her name, on a flash of understanding. It  was ice fire wind rain, in that order. There was an immediate bond, and I decided I very much liked stone being. She had great crone energy, looking over the rain forest, so loyal, so steadfast. A mighty but quiet protector. I was glad she was nearby.

By telling me her name, she had revealed to me the story of what made her what she is today, the destructive and weathering forces that had shaped her over tens of thousands, or even millions of years. I thought, that's a beautiful way to speak about oneself. What forces shaped me into this version? I considered the destructive forces of abuse, poverty, fear, shame, abandonment, coercion... There was immense suffering and abuse, yes, but that conjured an inner fire that smolders. A fire that shaped me into a softness. A wisdom that continues to grow, a groundedness made of gnarled roots. 

I spoke to the cedar about the climate crisis, apologized on behalf of us human folk. I am so so sorry, I said, heart to bark. They are dying in the hotter urban areas, we are losing many. They are sensitive beings, and like the cool mist. So do I, I said. Can I sit with you a while. And we leaned on each other.

I stopped for a chat with sweet and giving red elder, offering up it's potent healing fruit. She hung her branches low, and I picked elderberries right off the tree. We smiled and I said that shade of red would make a scandalous lipstick shade.

Devil's club reminded me, yet again, that being prickly and hard to control is good medicine. It keeps healthy boundaries and gains much deserved respect for those of us who did not always have access to our voice, or a safe spot to land. But you're safe with me, they said, and I stood under the enormous leaf, like a toad under a toadstool.

The visits to the neighbors wound down, and the cedar branches so elegantly splintered the light down to the forest floor. Show off. I took a deep inhale, face up to the canopy. Trees exhale their dreams, ya know.

Later, staring into the hypnotic fire, I was drawn down down down deep into the depths of the earth, into a much older time. A time of molten ground, continents forming, shifting groaning, gaseous… Things taking root. Vines growing, a leaf unfurling. 

And then I moved farther and came to a time when community sat around Father fire, and the bard sat in shadow, speaking of dragons, faeries, trolls, and sea monsters, as they leapt from the circle of flame, a time when we slept under the stars, and knew the medicine of all the plants around us, the meaning of community. 

Then I picked up my pen and continued the process of rewriting and reweaving the world.