The breath of the mountain fogs around her as she flows over mossy rock. I have to duck to enter the grove of manzanitas guarding her banks. Crouching, I enter a womb-like space of moss-covered rock beside her calming, swishing, gurgling banks. I climb the rock and sit, reaching my toes to the surface. Cold and clear and rushing by, the water touches me and sends shivers to my spine. I bend, bringing lips to the surface, and drink. Lie back.

Only five minutes' walk from home, this secret place quietly lives.
I haven't told my... partner.
It feels too sacred here. Like the inside of the womb. I feel that I can come here to escape, and to rest, if I carry reverence in my heart.

The creek refuses to take my loneliness, though. I offer my tears and she swallows them. I dream of becoming a river creature and diving into her, being carried away.

What is that perfect sound? How her water is shapeless yet becomes circular as it moves around the rocks, sending bubbles to the surface; somehow together the water and rocks ring out a sweet song. A softness that catches silence and invites listening.

The river is like the rhythm underneath my heartbeat. The song of my bones.

I can feel it, and a drumbeat dances out of my hand to my chest as I sing:


My body is the Earth
Mother, I can feel you crying
My body is the Earth
Mother, I can feel you dying


My voice has picked up the richness of the forest's dank soil, the mustiness of the moss and decaying manzanita leaves, and somehow too the clarity of the stream itself. Tears roll down my cheeks as I sing and drum to an audience of trees, moss, and creek, where my voice feels heard and safe and my heart is cracked open, one with the forest.

The hardest part is leaving, though I am more whole than before. I give my thanks to the water and crawl out of the mossy creekside womb, emerging at the edge of a gravel road in Southern Appalachia, North Georgia. Gravel crunches beneath my feet as I make my way homeward.

I never share my song with a human.