I’ve been home the last few days. Home meaning the area I was born and raised. Within an hour’s drive, I can be deep in a forest, on a mountain, near a river.
Uba Seo.
Yuba River. The river that raised me.
There’s an essence that I know I carry. It’s like the imprint of a sunset. In my eyes and anywhere I go.
The slowness, the depth of northern california sky. All within me.
artist: Mia Novacova
This time around I explore more on my own. My therapist always says home is a teacher. What does this home want me to know?
In New York City, I know the land so intimately. My own inner dialogue and the voice of the Hudson River. It speaks so clearly to me. The trees, all of them, speak to me with ease.
But here. In California. I must be so so still, in order to hear anything coming through.
Today I decide to go more deep in the mountains. In my brother’s shaky truck. Winding through two lane roads on the edge of the mountain. Blasting Crystalline by Stevie Knicks.
In one moment, I feel my body disassociate while driving. A part of me wants to turn back. A part of me wants to push forward.
I focus all my energy on my feet. I feel every bit of sensation travel down my body. It takes a minute, I’m back in my body. Phew
This gives me confidence to get through the rest of my ride. I eventually get lost. No service or stores for miles.
Erykah Badu sings
I’m trying to decide…which way to go…
As I literally make a wrong turn back there.
I keep going and I find arrows pointing to a bend on the left. Beautiful, there is the river.
I make my way down, taking it all in. A bridge, big rocks, trees, elevation and a beautiful bluish green river.
This feels different than what I’m used to.
Here the flow is rapid. The rocks are huge, they look as if they’ve been blasted through. And then I remember the gold.
The gold that was mined here.
No wonder the rocks are sharp and flat, not like the ones further down that are round and shaped by the earth.
I feel a destructive human presence here. I step into the freezing water where I kick up sand. Gold floats to the top. Sprinkling in the sun.
I try so hard to turn my mind off, and connect with the calmness of this nature but I have 0 chill.
The nature beings here will not let me be. I am perceptive and they know.
fantasia (1940)
So I do my very best to listen.
At first I think it’s about having stronger energetic bounds. I visualize a bubble and repeat
I only let vibrations of love in
I repeat it enough times to stick.
Again, it’s the memory of destruction in this space. Can’t ignore it this time. I must sit with the energy and the overwhelming beauty that surrounds it.
The energy slows down when I ask what I can do? And what my role is here? What is California calling me to do?
It feels like an urgent request from a mother. And I guess my role is to find patience in this download. I humm it out, finding a tune I’m comfortable with.
The other destructive forces happening in this world seep in.
I look to the sky to see what birds appear and the rocks.
Crows and vultures. I know by now that crows transcend time and space while vultures function as allies in death/life. Fine, I acknowledge you. I whisper to myself.
I go deeper, and feel the rush of the river. The sharp rocks start to look like sharks.
Sharks, representing fearlessness and alertness.
I try again to shut off my mind, and I feel the river ask the opposite of me.
To turn on my mind when my body is speaking, to keep me alert more than ever.
Alertness to what we will do after the destructive forces are dissolved. Fierceness with how we rebuild.
Because the river will not stop. It will find a way through. Like the movement we are in right now.
And that’s when I truly believe and have faith in those that say these are all signs of what is falling.
The rocks remind me of gravestones. The birds of grief portals, and healing rooted in alertness, with eyes wide open.
x
Jakari Wing
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P.S.S. I leave you with these two videos