Barefoot in the Mystic

Notes from the Hollow Bone, entry five

It wasn’t the song alone.
It was the way it arrived—soft, sure, and familiar. I was busy, buried in doing, when it played: "We were born before the wind... also younger than the sun." And I paused. Not because of memory, but because of presence. That line felt like something ancestral. Something soul-level. Something that needed to be felt, not just heard.

In that moment, the world stilled. I stood. I stepped outside. I let my feet find the earth. There’s something ancient and spectacular about feeling the ground beneath bare feet, the way grass brushes skin, how bark responds to touch. The body remembers what the mind forgets. The earth becomes familiar again. And in that moment—this is home.

I didn’t want to recreate a memory. I didn’t want to escape. I wanted to be. Fully. Present. The universe gave me a song, a pull, a whisper. I said yes.

That moment led me to wonder: why do we ignore the invitation to pause?

The answer, for me, is habit. Routine. Structure. Control. Things that feel safe, predictable, sensible. But they don’t nourish. They don’t replenish. They keep us just functioning enough to miss the quiet miracles.

This is the tension I live in now. The tug between who I was and who I am becoming. It isn’t a balancing act—it is a surrender. A remembering. A return.

Becoming the hollow bone isn’t passive. It’s active trust. It’s learning to be empty enough for wisdom to move through you, and brave enough not to fill that space with noise. I don’t want to lead every moment anymore. I want to be led. I want to be guided by what I feel in my bones, by instinct, by that sacred pull.

I think that’s what happened in February—something broke open. The veil thinned. And I crossed a threshold I can’t uncross. I finally began to ground in the understanding that I do not need to belong to the world. I need to belong to myself. And in doing that, I find myself more connected to others than I ever imagined.

I’m still early in the journey. But I am listening. I am learning. I am surrendering. And I am sharing it because I know I’m not the only one.

These are my notes.
This is my becoming.
And today, it started with bare feet in the grass and a song that reminded me I am, in fact, both older than the wind and younger than the sun.

With Grace & Ink,

Mai