RITUAL OF RETURN

Journal by Jenn, a member for the Sound and
Writing Team
Eventually, when structures of feeling crystalized into
form, we rediscovered language. Words were imbued
with new, dynamic, compound meanings. The way we
understood the world warped our sense of self. Our
brains now resembled mobius strips, held together by a
twist, inside and out becoming twins. We were destined
to ever fold in on ourselves. Our cells, these systems,
the earth and her rhythms.
Stock notions and habits became the spell of the
sensuous. Time itself dilated. We knew not whether
seven days or seven seconds had passed, but our
collective, this raft, finally felt the kelp below tickling
our limbs.
We’d made it—of that we were sure. However, by old
conceptions of reality, we had no idea where we were.
To our surprise, it didn’t matter. Our sense of space
altered to such a degree that we knew intimately, to
belong anywhere is to belong everywhere. I suppose
that’s at what, not where we arrived. A sentient
belonging that had been atrophied by our previous way
of life, as distant now as the night that attempted to
swallow us whole.
Taking off our blindfolds once we reached the shore,
we commenced unraveling each fiber of the fabric that
kept us in the dark and wove a net of blur. Stories and
hymns poured out of us from who knows where, who
knew when. As we sat there, remembering, the passage
of days winked until we were complete. In the end, we
knew we had to let it all go.
Lifting the veil, a sheet to the sky, we saw for what felt
like the very first time.