“Come sit down for a moment” said the rock. I hesitated. It was getting late, the sun set and blue hazes enveloped the valley. Soon they would turn black and Chris would get worried, then angry. I should go home.
“No, come, sit. It’s important” the rock insisted. I gave in. I was not hard to convince. I did not want to go be a human again, a proper human in a proper house, separated from the darkness, from the wildness, from the night.
Separated. Humans call it “protected”.
It was not hard to convince me, I have learned that rocks do not call me for no reason. Trees, mountains – they only speak when there is something to say. Something important.
I climbed up the craggy mountain side, just high enough to see the sky over the tips of pine trees, and settled on a boulder. The boulder was quiet, the mountain, the pine trees held a silence in which nothing could disturb their presence. A silence without words, without thoughts, without distractions, and in this silence I felt myself so clearly, I was myself so distinctly.
“Oh, I want to stay!” I thought with longing and desperation, “I never want to leave. I want to stay here, where I am myself so easily, so effortlessly. I want to stay here with you!”.
“This is how you are” said the rock. “Look, this silence, this presence, your presence that takes on a human form. This is you. The silence we hold you hold. Anywhere. Here you share it with us. There, with humans, among all the noise, you hold it. It is you.
Wherever you are – you do not stop being you.”
