the first voice

the first time i channeled on a wilderness solo

before i could name the trauma or speak the truth, i heard something deeper. this was the beginning of remembering.

some voices don’t arrive in words. they rise like mist from a mountain meadow at dawn, only visible when the light bends just right. you have to be alone to hear them. still enough to notice the stream’s breath. empty enough to remember what you’ve always known.

i was a teenager, heartsick and hollowed, when i first heard the voice that would one day save me. i didn’t know yet what i was carrying. the memories were still buried. the venom of betrayal, planted in childhood, had not yet surfaced in conscious thought. but i felt its weight in my bones. i felt it in the ache i couldn’t name. so when they offered me a solo wilderness fast in the colorado high country, during a three-week outward bound backpacking trip, i said yes.

for three days and nights i fasted—sitting beneath a pine grove or wandering through alpine meadows bursting with wildflowers. i followed babbling brooks, climbed craggy cliffs, and found myself swallowed in a silence so vast it felt alive. the earth breathed around me. at night i nestled into a bed of evergreens and wept for reasons i couldn’t yet articulate. the sadness came in waves. so did the beauty. the water was crystalline, the sky too big to hold. i had never felt more alone, or more seen.

on the final day, after bathing in the icy stream, something changed. i felt emptied, like an old vase rinsed clean. and then, i filled. not with thoughts or memories, but with presence. a consciousness moved into me, through me. it wasn’t separate. it was mine. it was me. but it was also more than me.

i began to write. furiously. the words flowed through my hand like water, every answer to every question arriving fully formed before i even knew what i was asking. i wrote into my little weather-warped journal until the sun disappeared behind the peaks. every line held truth. every word held peace. and for the first time, i felt whole.

i didn’t know it then, but i had entered the stream of my higher self. i had opened the door to something ancient and loving, something buried beneath all the noise. and for a time, it became my compass. that journal held the map to the soul i had not yet remembered.

but like many sacred things, i forgot. i buried the journal. i tucked it away in a crawl space. i re-entered the world. i went to college. fell in love. married. had children. survived. i didn’t understand yet how essential that voice was. i didn’t yet know that the forgetting would lead me straight into the fire.

it would be years later, after devastation and loss, that i would find the journal again. the pages were bent and yellowed, but the voice inside was untouched. and i would remember what i had first learned there, among the evergreens and wildflowers: the soul speaks when we are empty enough to listen.

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thank you for being here, it truly means the world. i love hearing your thoughts, if you feel called to comment.

i am a writer, speaker, and musician devoted to healing and embodiment. i share essays, poetry, and original music through venus consciousness. i’d love to walk this path with you. 💞