When the land and the creatures around you
become a place of belonging,
You will finally have arrived home.
Oak, raven and hummingbird will know your name.
The smell of lilac beside the garden fence
invites you to remember long still summers.
To truly experience belonging
is not a matter of how deeply you notice your surroundings
or what you can tell me about this place.
To say that you truly belong
Is to become authentically familiar
to the ones that live here;
to allow yourself to be deeply seen and heard by them.
Be still and listen; they say.
You have descended from the love of thousands
Stand humbly upon our shoulders as a mountain upon the earth.
We have made this place around you
We will find you.
And one day
when you are awakened in the night
in the quiet and dark liminal space between dreams
you will hear the prayers of your great, great grandchildren
looking for home.
May the way in which live your life
be an answer to their prayers and
a blessing to all your relations.
~Kedar S. Brown, May 2017
Vision Quest Ceremony, Capital Reef National Park, Utah.