Shaman John's Arc

Chapter 3 of 6

The stillness slipped away by morning. John woke in the grass and reached for the feeling from the day before. It was gone. He could touch it, but he could not keep it. He sat up and rubbed his face. The two dogs stretched beside him. He needed a way to hold the quiet, or it would keep leaving him. He walked back to his trailer, the long RV with the forest painted along its side. He sat on the step and let the old thoughts come. He did not push them away this time. He thought of the village he had left. He thought of the friends who had begged him to stay. Then he thought of his mate of ten years. They had made a lot of great memories together. But John kept reaching inward, always searching for his soul. His mate reached outward, chasing the world, and then reached for anything that would numb the ache. They had grown into two different people. John used to believe that if he had been softer, less restless, they might still be making memories side by side. He let himself feel the loss. He did not run from it. He breathed slow, the way he had breathed beside the dogs in the grass. The grief moved through him and did not swallow him. He understood something. Leaving had not been cruelty. Staying would have made him bitter and small. The truth was simple. He had needed to survive. Brandi pressed her head into his lap. He rested his hand on her ribs and matched his breath to hers. Slow in. Slow out. The stillness came back, softer now, but real. This time he saw how he had reached it. Not the grass. Not the woods. The breath. The animal beside him, present and unafraid. He decided then. Each morning he would sit on this step. He would put his hand on a warm dog and breathe with her. He would let the old faces come and let them pass. That was the practice. Not a place he had to travel to. A thing he could do anywhere, every day. A golden light drifted over the trailer roof. The butterfly returned. Its feathered wings opened, and inside them John saw a deep blue sky full of stars and small moons. It hovered close to his face. It did not speak. It only stayed, as if to say he had found the door. John smiled and did not chase it. He kept his hand on the dog and kept breathing. When he opened his eyes again, the butterfly was gone. But the quiet stayed. For the first time, he trusted it would still be there tomorrow. He had a practice now. The insight would no longer slip through his fingers.