This previously unreleased vignette is based on an experience I had that made me feel reborn. Like all of the stories in Varanasi Sage, this one is true to my experience. At that time of my life, I was on the precipice of a new way of being. I would be forever changed, and this morning set the tone for my new beginning. The encounters with wildlife felt especially symbolic.

I hope you enjoy this audio track! Soon, I will release the entire audiobook version of Varanasi Sage. Stay tuned!

You’ll find the writing below, if you would like to read along.

A Call to Vision

Dark shadows obscured open farmland, hills and valleys. An occasional owl hoot accentuated the silence between.

The crescent moon observed from a star-filled sky as a deer path took me uphill. I enjoyed the cold air, knowing the afternoon would drive me into the shade with a fan turned high. At the top, between dry shrubs, I brushed aside small rocks and sat. 

I drank my tea with sips of intention, breathing the peace of a million minds sleeping, while night faded from black to blue, taking the stars, waking the birds. A line of color cut eastern hills in rolling silhouette.

Birds convened in the heavens, voices joined with each breath, proclaiming the ordinary miracle that sets our clocks. Old and familiar, yet always new.   

A showcase, a pastel wash on oaks and hills, hues casting themselves as bright streaks on feather clouds, colors spread by a gilded brush, each layer more brilliant than the last. Breathing deeply, my seat on the ground, I took in the oaks, chaparral, and dried grasses. All of us together in the presence of its Majesty rising. I pinned my heart to the changing sky, illuminating my being.   

A rustling uphill—a small rabbit! My smile and his sprint, light and fast, until, face to face, we looked into each other’s eyes. His nose and whiskers twitched a brief moment before he dashed. A soft, tender happiness carried water to my eyes, washing my heart, cleansing my cheeks. An awareness of golden rays behind hills, opening me to light as a soul opens her eyes, birthed into new life, connected with the One. A pleasure to exist on a hilltop in shifting light, a glory to cure afflictions.

I meandered back to the path, recognizing each step. In the lowest branch of a wide-reaching oak — a barn owl. I slowed to admire her round face, her speckled auburn overcoat, her white underdress. She leisurely stretched her wings and flew to a rancher’s post nearby, piercing my humanity before turning to the landscape, as if in her higher wisdom, she, too, admired the valley at dawn. 

Towards her mystery I crept, present to our encounter. She turned her face to mine, and after a moment, sailed on silent wings to the next post. Magnetized. I followed. She peered into my soul, drew me along the ridge, and stopped at short distances. She signaled our walk’s end by flying high into a tree.