Whispering in your ears were the sounds of the wind, swirling around the dark forest, narrowed eyes trained to shadows that hastily scurried away from the path as you approached.
You did not know how you came to be where you are, only that this very moment was meant for you to arrive precisely at the time that you did.
Your mind filled with empty thoughts. Abstract ideas that danced enticingly for attention and punctuated with periods of silence, much like the crunching of gravel beneath each step forward that you took.
The moon shone between the trees, flashing into your eyes like a strobe adjusting itself to your pace. In the wind that fluttered across the back of your neck held a chill that was countered by the heat emanating from your moving body.
You have been walking tirelessly for hours now. The excursion began at dusk and has lead you to into these woods. Guided only by the light of a quiet conviction that prompted both movement and repose, in the meditation of a journey that you did not expect to take.
There were signs along the way that you ignored. Danger, caution, yield… Words and shapes of authority that you no longer obeyed or paid attention towards.
For you now are following your own rules, your own laws and as senseless as they appear to others, they make the most perfect sense to you.
You have felt the stir of an awakening that eluded an intellectual explanation. A touching of the divine emanating from the core of your being. This was the reason why you embarked on this walk. To see beyond the world one must learn to first see within the self.
And you saw what you have always wanted to see.
God sitting upon his throne, nestled in the cavity of your chest. Looking through your eyes at a senseless world populated with automations that did not know of the path you presently are on. That did not desire to step outside of the cages they’ve built for themselves. A world of form, deception, ignorance and distraction.
A world that your heart knows can no longer sustain itself.
A world in senseless pain.
The wounded spirit of the Earth cries out in silence as your footsteps grow heavier in acknowledgement. You stop, feeling the urge to touch a nearby tree and to press your hand against it’s rough bark.
You closed your eyes. Releasing all attention away from your mind and body.
What came next were not words as you knew them to be, but an ancient language that felt both alien and familiar all at once.
It was the tree.
And it was speaking.
It told the story of how it first awakened in a moist darkness. Unaware, unsure and filled with loneliness and despair. It remained in this state for a while, feeling defeated and lost, without purpose or form.
No way of understanding who and what it was.
Until one day, it became sensitive enough to its situation that it could feel a warmth from above. A call.
Like the walk you are now on, it said, it made little sense but to press on.
And press on it did.
It pushed and pushed and pressed and struggled towards the warmth.
Until one day, it pushed through the darkness and sprouted itself onto the surface.
To be greeted by the morning sun.
There was another world out there, the tree had said. One that exists beyond this darkness and when in despair, do not feel so but to align to the warmth and always head in its direction.
You stood there in momentary silence.
Warmth? You had asked.
Yes. The tree responded. Follow the warmth and you will see.
You opened your eyes and stood still on the path. Pondering its words.
And then, it arrived.
It began as a faint haze until it grew into a gentle fire, the God within laughed merrily upon his throne as your soul recognized the wisdom it has been given.
The warmth of the heart will not steer you wrong.
You released your hand and stepped back with gratitude and a smile.
And continued your way home.
On a pathless path.
