Stuffed full of two dozen little crispy fish and the good fellowship of my campmates, I slowly pick through the brief stretch of woods between the trail and the tiny lake we discovered near camp. Leaving the needle carpeted pine highland behind, I step into a calf-deep sea of soft, bright green grass broken only by our meandering trail to the water. The fragrance of mint drifts up around me as I walk through their soft leaves and tiny purple flowers, the warm firelight of the setting sun saying farewell to me. Only an elbow of the lake is visible here, so that this bowl of water and grass and mint seems embraced by the pine highlands.

I am so filled with gratitude that I start to choke up. I could easily hold it in, but I release my feeling into the world and let myself sob.

So many have cared for me in these nine suns. Every hazelnut bush who gave me her children, every sunfish who gave himself to the hook, the sickeningly abundant blackberries, the grasshoppers and frogs and ants, the oxeye and evening primrose flowers, the strawberry and dandelion and basswood leaves, my campmates. So many beings who have given me their lives, their children, their guidance.

“Thank you,” I whisper under my breath, wet tracks dripping down my face. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

Suddenly I am overtaken with the sense that every living thing in the embrace of the lake –the pines, the water, the leeches, the birds, the frogs, the grass, the breeze, the clouds, the sky, the mosquitoes, the fallen logs– is welcoming me back. As if I’ve been prodigal my entire life, or for the past twenty generations, but my place has been saved for me and all I have to do is step back into it.

It’s as if I’ve been here for these four moons, but I wasn’t here until I gave myself to this direct relationship with the beings who sustain me. There is no farmer between us, no store, no exchange of imaginary numbers or meticulously designed paper, not even the food drop from the support center. I give to them of my body and my spirit, and they give to me of theirs.

Nine suns of doubt, fullness, revelation, hunger, excitement, weakness, satiation, bliss, discomfort. Standing there in the soft, bright green grass under a burning sky, I cry like my heart is broken, and maybe it is, just broken open.