My belly started speaking three days ago. It’s still speaking right now. It says spring like joy. Be a deer in the forest. Hold onto nature. It says, you are now in the driver’s seat. You are behind the wheel. I haven’t driven my life for four years. And beyond that. And I haven’t driven a car for two. It’s been a long, long while since I danced. But now I am turning on the faerie lights on my bureau. I am lighting a lot of candles. I am getting up to post in my blog instead of lying in bed and trying desperately to disappear into sleep once again. People come at me with their bad advice. But something in me has changed. I listen only so far as to hold the road. I can’t drive all over the place. I can’t go up on curbs, or travel through the snow and the mud and the grass. The untamed forest has no place for my car. I have to travel on the road as it is designed. But I don’t have to do it in an old way. I don’t have to do it in a hurt, wounded way. I can do it in an imaginative way. I can find the poem in it. And that is what I have been doing. I call this essence. I have a body. I have a mind. I have a heart. I have a soul. I have roots. And I have an essence. For about four years now I have been in my mind. And mostly that has been controlled by some outside force. It was controlled by something other than me. That sounds strange, I know. But I was always struggling against something. I was blocked, doubtful, hurt, stolen, suffering, in pain. It was the veil of the goddess light, I think. It was in fact, the sight. But three days ago something happened to me. And I am doing much better in every way. I even folded the laundry right after it was dry. I ate three meals instead of one. I stayed up for sixteen hours with no problem. I wrote in my journal. I listened to music and I actually enjoyed it. I bought supplies for a new life on Amazon. I invested in my growth and learning. And I planted my paperwhites finally. And I talked to the goddess in a gentle way. She said, Beth, what do you believe in? And I was able to answer soundly. I believe in magic. And I believe in love. And I believe in wholeness. I believe in wisdom. And I believe in health and well-being. I believe in myself. And I believe in my children. And I believe in hours and hours of life experience. So come at me with your bad advice. Go ahead. But the goddess Hawk and I are now driving this car. We’re sticking to the road. But we are no longer putting it in constant reverse. And we are not in neutral sleeping the day away sometimes anymore. We are writing. And we are thinking. And we are imagining. And we are doing it by lamplight and by candlelight and by faerie light. We are drinking lots of strong black tea with lemon and sugar. And we are eating good food. I believe in my essence. And I believe that I can create a powerful poem of manifestation that changes my whole world. There is a light within me. There always has been. But I was so wounded with the darkness of the whole entire world. God said it was necessary for my sacred purpose. To bring about justice and wellness and love I needed to be held tightly in the embrace of its opposite. That all makes perfect sense. I am, after all a sacred healer and a sacred listener. So, I healed and I listened. But I am not listening to the same track with God in my mind anymore. It feels like I am finally listening with my heart. With my toes and my fingers. With my being. But what I am listening to is not broken. It is magical and light-filled and joyous. I haven’t come all the way home yet into my right life. I am still confined by my low circumstances. I am not with the people I love yet. I am not a world recognized coach or author. I am not my sacred calling. But I let go of my sacred boundary. I am not held back by trauma anymore. As Dar Williams says, “I am sleeping fine. Sometimes the truth is like a second chance. I am the daughter of a great romance.” I am the daughter of a great romance. I am the daughter of wellness herself. I am the daughter of inspiration and wisdom. I am the daughter of beauty. And I am the daughter of a poet. And in that, I am becoming my own poet. I am becoming my own writer. My past holds me to my story written by something so huge and unfathomable yet also perfectly sensible if you know the entire story. It is written. And it has been written with love and a lot of totally unreasonable demands on my being. God was serious. There was lots to be done in the world of mental health. It was brutal in there. But I am an author of A Rooted Mind. And A Rooted Body. And A Rooted Soul. And A Rooted Heart. And A Rooted Life. And A Rooted Being. And the Life Roots Healing system. And many others in the rooted series. That comes with a lot of expectations. I know this well. So well. It has been drilled into me. “Beth, your purpose, your purpose, your purpose…” But now it’s “Beth, your calling.” That’s a totally different conversation with God. I am in love. With spring. And with hawks that fly. And with little sweet wrens that come to visit me. I am in love with the grandmother, the wise woman who has become my guide and not my tormentor. I am in love with myself. And I am finally in love with life as a river of beautiful possibility and not an unmanageable, unimaginable nightmare. I am driving on the road but my destination is the forest. And in the forest I will find my loves. Including you. This is a dance, not a lie down in pain. So dance with me, my friend. Come hold onto my hand. My heart is joy like spring. And I see that deer standing there imagining the green that is coming now. Let’s go into green together. Okay, buttercup, let’s begin again til we make it.