Some days passed.
She went about her chores as usual, folding laundry, sweeping crumbs, wiping sticky fingerprints from the table, but something had shifted. The memory of the lotus still pulsed within her, like a quiet rhythm under the noise of daily life. It stayed with her, a soft hum behind her eyes.
One evening, when the house had finally settled and the little ones were asleep, she sat on the edge of the bed. No music. No mantra. Just silence.
A question rose up in her chest, gentle but firm:
"What now?"
She had lived here for years. Cleaned every corner, cooked every meal, soothed every cry. She had kept the house running like clockwork, even when her own body was breaking.
But now… now she longed for something else.
Not escape.
Just peace.
"I've done everything for everyone," she whispered, "but what do I wish for now?"
She looked down at her hands, calloused, dry, still smelling faintly of dish soap. So many tasks had passed through these hands. So much care.
And yet, something in her heart felt untouched. Waiting.
"What will the future bring?"
Would she stay here forever, orbiting around the needs of others? Or would she find a way to claim a life that held joy, not just survival?
Her chest ached with the question. Not from pain, but from honesty.
Maybe it was okay not to have the answer yet.
Maybe it was enough, for now,to admit the question existed.
She lay down beside her children, pulling the blanket over their small bodies and her own.
In the stillness, she let herself wonder,
What if peace wasn't something to chase,
but something to return to, inside herself, again and again?
In the days that followed, the question stayed with her, not heavy, but steady, like a stone warmed by the sun.
She moved through her routines with a little more presence now, letting herself feel rather than just do.
And slowly, the answers began to rise, not from the world outside, but from the stillness inside her.
She wanted a life that meant something.
Not just in sacrifice, but in creation.
She dreamed of building a spiritual path, not perfect, but real. A path grounded in her own journey—the mantras, the meditations, the energy she had come to know. She wished to share it, not as a teacher above others, but as a companion walking beside them.
The thought of a book began to form.
A book where her voice could live.
Where her struggles and healing, her moments of breakthrough and return, could find space and maybe—just maybe—help someone else feel less alone.
She didn't need fame.
Just to be read.
To be understood by even a few.
Another wish took root in her belly, soft, green, growing.
She wanted land. Not much. Just enough to plant life that would feed her.
Edible things. Simple things. Herbs, berries, roots that came back year after year.
Not a burden to tend, but a rhythm.
A way to live close to the earth without being crushed by it.
Not a farm. A sanctuary.
A garden of breath and time.
The more she listened, the clearer it became:
She didn't want to escape life.
She wanted to shape it gently, with her own hands, in her own time.
She began to write her wishes down—just a few lines at first.
No pressure. No deadline. Just honesty.
Her journal, once a place of survival, began to fill with seeds.
She began to dream differently. Not the usual half-symbolic, half-forgotten stirrings of the night, but something deeper. Something that stayed with her even after waking.
In one dream, she found herself buried alive. Not crushed, but sealed, held in stillness, in silence. She woke with the taste of fear in her chest, the sense of being trapped still clinging to her body. It took time to calm herself, to remember she could move, that she was here.
Later, when she returned to meditation, expecting light or vision, she found only darkness.
Darkness. Darkness. Darkness.
Complete and endless.
At first, she panicked. Then something inside her softened.
Whatever comes, let it come, she thought.
And in surrendering, she felt a strange kind of relaxation, as if something in the dark was holding her.
But it was unfamiliar, and too soon she pulled herself back to waking life.
The next time, the darkness returned. Curious and unsettled, she decided to try a guided meditation, one that promised to lead her to her animal guides.
The guide spoke of a forest, a walk among tall trees.
She closed her eyes and tried to follow, but what she saw was different: a strange, enchanting woodland with soft moss, green mist, trees broad and low like ancient beings curled in sleep.
It felt more like a fae forest than any earthly one.
The guide described a door in a tree.
She saw instead a long glowing crack, almost like molten lava, running down the bark of one tree.
Something told her to reach in.
As her hand entered the light, her body jerked, she spat blood from her mouth in the dream. Yet in the same moment, she felt a green energy surge into her, a healing force wrapping around her chest and limbs.
She asked if this was the entrance. A voice answered:
Yes.
She tried again and found herself in a tunnel or stairwell, bright, ascending, almost heavenly.
But the guide was describing stairs leading down, into moss and damp darkness.
She tried to follow that image instead, reshaping the tunnel in her mind until it leveled out and opened into… a desert.
Not just sand, but emptiness. Silence. The bones of the earth.
Confused, she tried again to follow the instructions, this time, to see a forest with towering trees. She managed to "plant" a few pale green saplings, but the desert wind swept them away like dust.
So she let go of the guided voice and followed her own path.
In the vast, dry land she stood alone, the wind brushing against her face. Eyes half-closed, she listened to the silence.
Then, something moved in the sky.
A bird, flying fast toward her, landed gently on her hand. It looked like a desert hawk, but then shifted, black and white, almost like a swallow.
The wind howled again, lifting both her and the bird, carrying them across the dunes toward steep, eroded hills.
As the bird flew ahead, she was pulled downward, sliding in the sand, then sinking, again, that familiar sensation of being buried alive.
But this time, there was something different.
Curled into herself like a child, deep in the sand, she felt something reach for her.
Tree roots.
Roots from that first green forest, growing down through the earth, seeking her.
They wrapped around her, gently, like arms, and pulled her up.
When she opened her eyes, she was no longer underground.
She was leaning against the trunk of a tree, the same tree she had seen at the beginning.
Above her, the hawk-swallow circled swiftly in the sky.
She felt the green energy again. Healing her. Holding her.
Slowly, she came back from the meditation.
Breath by breath.
Stillness by stillness.
And she sat there for a long time, full of wonder.
In the days that followed, she thought often about what the dream had shown her. The blood, the wind, the darkness, and the quiet green embrace of the roots. She began to understand that some doors do not open by force. Some paths cannot be carved, only followed.
Letting go had not been a failure. It had been the opening.
When she stopped pushing, the way appeared.
When she surrendered, healing came.
And maybe, just maybe, what she truly needed had been waiting for her all along, beneath the sand, beneath the silence, beneath the fear.
She only had to let it find her.
Song she created with her new idea:
Roots of Surrender
I tried to hold on tight,
Fighting through the night,
But the harder that I grasped,
The more slipped from my hands.
So I let go, let the roots grow,
Deep in the earth below.
In surrender, I found peace,
A gentle strength that won't cease.
Like a river flowing free,
Carried by the breeze,
Sometimes the hardest part
Is learning how to release.
So I let go, let the roots grow,
Deep in the earth below.
In surrender, I found peace,
A gentle strength that won't cease.
In the quiet, I hear the song,
Of letting go where I belong.
So I let go, let the roots grow,
Deep in the earth below.
In surrender, I found peace,
A gentle strength that won't cease.
She sat down with her guitar, letting her fingers find the strings as the melody rose naturally from the flow of her deep feelings. The song carried the softness of surrender, the strength of roots growing quietly beneath the surface. Around her, only the wild animals stirred, an audience of whispers and rustling leaves, listening to her heart's quiet release.
No one else heard her song, but in that moment, it was enough.