Skull & Staff

When the forest calls

The forest calls, the rain unrelenting

As a group, we climb the knoll dropping into the part of the forest where the black trumpets hide.

My family strays from the path, some hiking up, others into the gully.

I move slow, emerging from behind, a skull in one hand, a bark covered staff in the other.

They are hunting mushrooms, I’m searching for my sanity. I am hunting bones and structure.

I breathe the heavy clean air. The mud covered leaves, the sodden discarded feathers, the wind through the fir trees. I fill my lungs with the swaying redwoods and dripping oaks.

The rotting forest floor, composting and sprouting life pulls my shoulders away from my ears, pulls the distrust I have felt down into the slippery earth beneath my boots.

I am a witch in a rain slicker, soaking and dripping, droplets covering my turquoise and silver laden fingers, rivulets moving up my arms.

The deer skull in one hand, teeth digging into my palm, the redwood staff clutched in the other, the wood warming from my grip, bark comes off in sheets. The forest is calling.

The water runs around my boots, small canyons running downhill toward the creek. I know it is there but hidden by the trees.

Standing in a rainstorm, the quiet is still loud, louder than the hum of traffic and gunshots, louder than the life we live on pavement.

My family continue to search the ground, I stand in the rain feeling found.

Under a dripping oak tree I commune with the dead, they whisper in my bones “You are safe here, this is home”. Water falls from my clothing, my hair whips free from my hood.

The cold is temporary, the wet will dry, I am washed clean of the worry, renewed to rebel.

This is the living part of the cycle, I hold death in one hand. I stare up through the branches, feel the rain on my face, reborn this day in a forest full of life and decay. I hold death in one hand, the skull called my name. A staff of redwood bears my weight, the earth holds me steady.

The forest is calling and cradles my soul, holding death in one hand I feel its deep pull.