Campfire Sessions — 03aug26

Seeking new places to set campfires within the wode. The old ones leave the ashes cold even where they gather and that is a sign I am meant to move on. And so I pass their hollows and dream deeper and older to ancient wooden trails where even the night finds it hard to take a hold. Into the before, when even the old ones had yet to be born.

It is Crow and Ash and Stone. Mountain waters gather in pools that go deep on the forever and the raindrops find their way to this dismal home. Water always finds a way, for it is married to Stone.

You must be mad to come to this place, says her voice. Into the belly you’ve come.

It is where you home, I say. Am I mad to seek you at your home?

Laughter from all directions in the belly of the forest. Only that you come alone. Where is the bird?

I ponder this. Recall.

They were left behind as I was informed. I first went to Lake, and then I went to Stone. Stone sent me deeper still and the Old did not object. Nor did they add much to anything except sat there like bone.

And Lake, what did she add to your instructions?

She only said to dive deeper.

Not within?

It is my turn to laugh. Yes, but not her within. Already I had waded her waters in the pool tended by the acorn man. I learned what I needed of her then.

And Stone — what did they say?

I only waited until their shape was made to point the way.

She nodded there in the darkness, though there was no light with which to see. I could sense it, there in the understone and undertree.

Then come, she said. We must learn to speak.

And so I went and sat with her. In the understone. And the undertree.