It had been lost for a while. Or at least that is what she thought.

Meru had told her that ”nothing is ever lost, nothing is ever left on the backburner. What is most important always shines through. It is just not always that the inner ear tunes in to the heart. Bravery is listening”, he’d said while continuing. ”Bravery is not blaming the moment but choosing the moment. Stepping in to the moment fully, interacting with all which is presenting itself there and then, that is bravery.”

All we are taught as kids is to chicken out. To forget the moment, to reminisce in the past, to make plans for the future in our bullet point journals so that we can then sit back and do ”nothing” while we are actually wasting precious diamonds of moments away, just checking stuff off a list.

”Do you remember that boardgame you played as a child? The one about ”The Star of Africa”, the gigantic diamond? Where you were taught that if you found rubies or sapphires or emeralds they were all just nothing compared to The Star of Africa?”

”How you kids loved playing that game. Throwing the dice, skipping stones and moments, being in awe of the colours a few milliseconds before you realized it was not The Star. You learned greed, discontent, not-good-enough-ness bit by bit. Moment after moment lost. Bravery would have been to stay with the emerald. To sit still. To thank it, saying you are not moving on yet, you are just lingering right here enjoying your new friend Emerald and intend to hang with him until it is time for you both to move on. Not when the throw of a dice says it’s time to move on. The universe throws its own dice and move you accordingly, in the dance where you can intend to go places when your heart sings about them.”

”Bravery, my dear. That is who you are from this day forward.”

He nudged her with his nose, poked her in the face, then in the belly till she started laughing, looked at her and then at the river quickly making its way down between the mountain tops.

”Time for breakfast” he yelled out, jumping in to the river to get his morning serving of salmon and fresh water. She rolled out the sac with her oat and corn flour bread mix, added a handful of the clear meltwater, flattened it with the ”baking stone” she’d gotten from those very cheeky dwarves some time ago. There were still a few glistening flakes of glow from last nights fire gently puffing as the wind was doing its dance. She helped along with her breath, rolled the flatbread around the birch tree stick and cooked her breakfast as Meru was wolfing his down.

Life like this. All you need. Nothing more. Nothing less. Human. Wolf. Nature. Mother Earth. Father Sky. Breath. This.

”See”, he whistled. ”Here and now! Bravery! Realizing you never ever need more than what is here and now, that is something something!”

”The thing is”, she told herself more than anyone else, ”I will have to go back some day. Back to what we call ”the world”. I cannot make it out here in winter.”

”How do you know that?” Meru asked. ”You have no clue as to what is around the corner, of what the next thought will be, so how can you know even a whim of what is to come this winter as your feet are bathing in the waters of now? Why anticipate what you don’t know? Be practical. Look at what you know and what makes sense in that. Winter is usually cold. So, you need good, warm clothes, shelter and food. You live with a wolf, so you won’t go hungry. Easy!”

”You make me laugh Meru. Always.”

”Little busy one. You have been so active filling up with worries and to-do’s and have to’s and building plans and and and that there has been no space for the What Is.

Filling the What Is space keeps you away from succeeding at what you are here to do, from completing your task, from receiving the key to the next moment from this moment. Laugh. Be Open To Everything. Let the runes speak. Let the river answer.”

Cecilia Götherström, Dec 3rd 2019