Shaman John's Arc

Chapter 5 of 6

For days after holding his younger self, John sat in silence. He spoke to no one. He wanted to hear the quiet voice beneath his thoughts. Each morning he sat on the trailer step and listened. On the third morning, the voice came. It was soft and sure. "You are still young," it said. John opened his eyes. He knew what the words meant. It was time to return to Pachamama, the living earth, and ask what came next. He remembered his last journey, four years ago. Back then the earth had given him three words. "Heal you, heal the world." He had carried those words all this time. Now he had begun the healing. He had met the wounded boy inside him. He was ready to hear the next message. John packed light. He climbed into his red truck and started the engine. The road-worn dashboard was warm from the sun. He drove out of the village with his hands steady on the wheel. His chest felt tight with nerves and lit with hope. He did not know what the earth would say. That not-knowing scared him and pulled him forward at once. He drove for hours. The village fell behind. Fields opened wide on both sides. He parked at the edge of the sacred ground and stepped out. The air smelled of soil and green leaves. The great tree stood before him. Its dark bark curved into the face of an old grandmother, eyes closed, mouth soft with a smile. Its roots spread wide over the earth like open hands. John's throat closed. His own grandmother lived in a warm kitchen far away, in a country he had been taken from as a boy. He had searched for that warmth his whole life. Here it stood, carved into wood and root. John knelt at the base of the tree. He pressed his palm to the bark. "I came back," he said. "I did the work you asked. I found the boy. I held him." He closed his eyes and slowed his breath. The ground felt alive under his knees. A soft golden light bloomed behind his eyelids. He opened his eyes. The spirit butterfly drifted down from the branches. Its feathered wings glowed gold. Inside each wing spread a night sky, deep blue and full of stars and small moons. It hovered near the grandmother face of the tree, calm and steady. It did not fly away. John understood. He had answered the earth's first call. He had healed enough to be trusted with more. His silence was over. His journey inward had brought him here, to the place where his own longing for home began. The renewal ceremony would start now. John settled his weight on the ground and faced the tree. He was ready to receive.