The Call of Sacred Ground

An excerpt adapted from Remembering Myself

The Shaman is never rootless. She is woven to the land, listening for the pulse beneath her feet.

As a child, I already knew that some places spoke to me differently. Forests restored something in me. The ocean felt like an old companion. Warmth and wildness stirred me awake in a way ordinary life never did.

Then the desert began to whisper.

The wide sky. The cacti standing like guardians. The strange beauty of fire-lit earth. I had never lived there, yet something in me recognized it.

Even as a child, I braided my hair and sat among rocks and trees as though I were waiting for a memory to return.

When I finally stepped into the desert sun, recognition moved through me before thought had a chance to catch up. The warmth touched my face and traveled straight into my heart.

The land felt familiar.

I knew I was home.

Following that knowing meant leaving much of what I understood as safety behind. Family, familiarity, even grief I had grown accustomed to holding. I followed because something deeper in me was asking to be remembered.

The desert became the ground where that remembering took root.

Home, I learned, is not always the place we choose.

Sometimes it is the place that recognizes us first.

This piece is part of Stories from Remembering Myself and is adapted from the book Remembering Myself: A Journey Through the Threads of Time.

Learn more about Remembering Myself.