I’m writing by my fire under the stars. Now 9 days in and through most of the wild and impenetrable part, I can finally reflect a little. The whole thing has been a gift. My family gifted me this time and trusted me with my life, and heaven has gifted me a guided safe passage. I feel so incredibly grateful. I have become attuned to the different sounds of water and what they mean, it’s speed, its power, the beauty of its dance. I have tuned in to different scents, to the deeply dormant olfactory wisdom that preserves life and warns gently of danger, to sounds and textures new to my consciousness, old to my DNA. To the infinite glamour of the night sky and to the twinkling eyes of loved ones watching and lighting the way home. One part woman, three parts the crushed glitter of a billion stars, the alpha that once frightened me, solidified in my soul.

I’d been so afraid of the dingoes before I came out. It was a power that felt too close for comfort. Now their howls echoing over and around me are my song. Never have I been more in my body and yet out here it is anything but my own. It belongs to the earth and it is behaving in the ways of a mother heavy with life. The river draws, gives, takes, sustains, I commit myself and she takes her commission. It is a tryst I hoped for but am shocked by the reality of. It’s breathtaking majesty makes me crave the compass of science as a way to explain it all, but it is the sun dial of the spirit that proffers its power. The most logical and conservative explanation I can arrive at, is the comparative mediocrity of magic.

So many times my own words have echoed in my head. The narration of dreams. All the dreaming words I was writing, they’re all becoming my realised truth. The living, breathing birthright of deeply held Pinocchio convictions, that if untrue, would have dismantled everything, rendering my perceptions crushingly wooden. A line I wrote some time ago floats by: ‘choose your words wisely; fate is a light sleeper‘. All of the things I wrote were my dreams, and now they are real. I’m real. Tonight I lay neath a blanket of fire, casting a shadow of stars.