The Ones Who Tend the Fire Beneath the Ash
Not all things are born in light.
Some take shape in root-time—
when the soil forgets the sun
and the moon forgets her name.
There is a kind of becoming
that grows beneath the ache—
in the marrow of rivers,
in the hush after rupture,
in the thread held fast
by Grandmother Spider
when the web was torn by wind.
Pain is not your enemy.
It is a drum.
A hoofbeat.
The echo of return.
Kneel beside it.
Place your palms on its trembling.
Say to the storm inside:
You belong too.
Rightness is not a rule.
It is the posture of moss—
soft, unhurried,
bowing to what breaks.
Grace is the slow rain
that does not ask permission.
It finds every crack
and blesses it.
Emergence does not bloom on demand.
It spirals.
It thickens in the dark.
It grows in the compost
of our disillusionment—
in the grief we were told to silence,
in the rage we feared would burn it all down.
And yes—
some houses must burn
so the seeds beneath them
can taste the sun again.
This is for the firekeepers—
those who carry embers
in their mouths,
and speak only
when the bones are listening.
This is for the woman
made of dusk and stardust,
whose worth was never servitude.
For the ancestors
who ride on the backs of coyotes,
whose names rise
in the rustle of cattails
and the hush before thunder.
This is for the ones
who are done being good
and now long to be whole.
True compassion has claws.
It does not flinch from blood.
It walks barefoot into the valley
and dares to plant seeds.
It is born from dignity,
not pity.
From presence,
not performance.
It does not whisper.
It speaks true.
Let this be the chant:
That we remember our salt.
That we shed the names
we were never meant to wear.
That we rise like mycelium—
quiet, relentless,
holding the forest together
beneath what is seen.
That we choose spiral over ladder.
Presence over praise.
Grace over grasping.
That we walk, again and again,
into the wild,
into the real,
into the breath of our own becoming.
