Refuge

She sits in quite solitude, above the river, among the rocks, in easy company with her thoughts. Closing her eyes she feels the heat rising from the boulders. She absorbs the energy, feeling somewhat grounded once again, sensing new direction, new hope.

But hope is the wind… unpredictable, insubstantial, unseen. Like hope, wind is best experienced with closed eyes and a quiet heart. Focus. Feel it. She is aware of how it caresses her cheek and the base of her neck, whispering gently across tender places, stirring tiny hairs on soft skin which yearns to be touched. Breezy fingers trace a lonely curve, following a line to the small of her back, pausing there, and in doing so, ceasing to exist.

It is the same way with hope. She sighs, feeling dampness at the corner of her eye, a tightening in her chest, a squeezing in her throat – as though the wind is being forced from her, along with any hope. She is aware that as long as she has a direction to move, she can feel hope, blowing softly about , keeping the air fresh and alive. But if she pauses, like the wind suddenly stilled, hope fades quickly into nothing. So she keeps moving, keeps creating, keeps dreaming. In doing so, she struggles to hold on.

Opening her eyes, she lets the sun guide her focus into the distance, following shadows cast down from the clouds into the mountains to the west. It can be mesmerizing, watching forms change, colors glow and fade, shadows dancing through rimrocks, through valleys... and through each other. Dreams change too, depending on the light, or on the shadows. And they change according to perspective. She knows that the dream she holds in her sight is hers alone. No one sits with her, sharing space and vision. From the other side of the mountain, maybe the dream can’t be seen at all. Nor the path. Nor can her trembling be felt as she thinks of losing touch... From there, perhaps clouds don’t appear to cast dancing shadows, perhaps clouds seem threatening, ominous, destructive. And from there, perhaps mountains seem like no place to dance, but instead an obstacle to be overcome.

Below the rim where she rests, sorting through thoughts and reasons, there runs a river. A giver and taker of life. From these rocks it looks quite benign, quietly contained within wandering banks of green. But the river, too, is not all it seems, difficult to define with any accuracy, continuously evolving, morphing, moving. Taking with it ancient elements whose remnants are the very rocks she’s taken refuge in.

Refuge... A word which shakes her soul. Suddenly she has found herself without a refuge. Or maybe it hasn’t been so sudden. Looking back she can see how it happened; a vague pattern perhaps, and somewhat sketchy, but she notices from here how the boundaries of her last refuge have been chipped away, peeled away… so violently blown away. Shit, even given away. She winces in recognition of her own part in the destruction. Means and reasons don’t matter, the refuge is gone. So, once again, afraid and exhausted, she must look within, to find answers and healing internally. That’s why she’s come here, instinctively returning to a place of beauty, of rest. Drawing energy from the elements of the earth, and finding hope in the wind… opening her heart, and gathering strength for the next big step.