She knew it was dangerous to go into the forest at night. She knew the night predators could come from around a corner at any moment and she wouldn't see them coming, or there could even be another human there wishing to do her harm.
All the same there was something that beckoned her here every night. Something about the rustling of the leaves in the trees from the cool night breezes. How cool the earth felt under her feet even in the summer. The ambient chirping and rustling sounds. It felt like an unstoppable tide, pulling her in deeper and deeper. Like a sweet siren song that she could taste in her every cell.
She found her favorite stump where she always sat. She shone a flashlight on it just to make sure no other creatures had decided it to make it their own seat tonight before she sat herself down.
She was here, in her sacred place. She felt a small amount of fear deep in her stomach, but somehow that only added to the magic she felt sitting here. She felt so small, yet at the same time part of something so much bigger than herself. It was so much easier for her to be able to see herself as part of the whole when she separated herself from the human world for a bit. It was as if a veil had been lifted, or she had been woken from a dream.
Through the layers of her feelings, the subtle fear blended into excitement, blended into freedom, blended into belonging, blended into peace and into calm. She only wished this moment could be lived forever. She breathed in and took a deep breath, savoring the cool night air. She breathed out, releasing any remaining traces of the human world to disintegrate into the night.
She was part of a larger body. Where did her own lungs end and the air from the atmosphere, and the oxygen produced from the trees begin? Where did her flesh end in the interconnected food chain in the circle of life. Where did the matter in her body end and where did the eternal stardust begin? The longer she sat she could start to feel herself become transparent. Like the arbitrary lines that separated her from every other living thing slowly started to disintegrate and it was as if she could feel the soft night breezes flowing through her. It was as if there was no separation between what she was supposed to be, and her soul. She felt heavy and connected to the earth, yet light and weightless at the same time. It was as if she were only a mesh of loosely connected particles waving like fabric hanging from a clothesline.
