Going Home

I had a dream some time ago.

I was sleeping in our cabin on the White River or Wapi-Hanne, as the Lenape once called it.

In the dream I heard scraping below the window where I was sleeping. I looked out into the shadows made by the moon and observed a small herd of deer making their way through the side yard. This seemed common enough, so I laid down again to sleep. Whispering and hushed voices woke me a second time. I looked out again for the deer and found that they had shifted into the Miami that inhabited these banks long ago. I found myself outside with them. They moved in the halting and direct movements like the White Tail, were curious of me, and humored by me as well. They murmured among themselves while trying to figure what I was and eventually faded into the darkness and I awoke.

What are we made of?

Before conception we are essentially the negative space between charged particles and chains of DNA. Upon conception we begin to gain mass from our mothers blood, that has gained nutrients from the substances she has consumed. If our mother is famished we will draw from her fat, muscle, and bone.

I was conceived in southern Indiana and while in utero my mother subsisted on the venison and vegetation that that region of the earth produced.

So, I can say with certainty, that I came from the earth.

I have always been drawn to the musty smells of the woods and the rain. Choruses of frogs and cicadas beckon me into the night.

The cottonwood seeds floating on shade covered creeks rejuvenate my soul. The loam and stone under the ferns calls me home.

Life rises and falls like waves on the sea. The earth throws forth life to draw it back in season, over and over again.

The core of me is earth. For generations I have ran with the deer, I have floated on the wind, I have rained down upon the earth, I have slept among the stones, and I have sprouted in the sunshine of spring.

I consider myself fortunate to know without doubt, where I come from.

I know without doubt that the core of me will eventually return to the earth and those ancient paths.

And at some point, in some manner,

I will return.