Entry Five

Today, I would tell the forest that I am both still and unsettled here.

The branches above me sway gently, and the air smells like damp earth and pine. I feel calm—rooted in a way I rarely do anywhere else. And yet, there is a tension I cannot name, a shadow that moves along the edges of my awareness.

The wind rushes through your trees, forest, and it gathers and rattles and hisses, reminding me how alive you are. And when darkness falls, it feels like you swallow the world whole. I stand among your trunks and needles and feel both held and exposed, as if the earth itself is whispering, you are safe, and yet nothing here is simple.

Here, I feel stripped down. Here, I feel witnessed. I feel small, but I feel expansive. I am reminded that calm can live alongside fear, and safety can coexist with the unknown.

I think that is what it means to be human, elemental. To be both light and shadow, rooted and untethered, known and searching. And in that tension, in that messy, beautiful duality, I find the spaces where growth quietly happens.

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The forest keeps this.