On the eve of turning 40, I shared a cozy space with a dear friend—inside a tent, under a cloudy sky.
As we both slipped in and out of our journey with plant medicine, she whispered something about children and war. Then she sat straight up, cupped her face in her hands, and began to weep.
These tears were different. She was grieving—raw, ancestral grief.
The kind that pours from the marrow. Less personal, more collective.
The kind that belongs to women who remember the weight of silence.
And I was there. As a witness. Holding space.
Like so many times between us, I dropped into deep presence to honour the moment.
It wasn’t a conscious act. I was pulled forward—spine lengthened, breath slowed.
Everything inside went quiet.
And I just stayed. Still. Rooted by her side.
The trees rustled as if to bless the fullness of her expression.
Something holy passed between us in that moment.
Not romantic. Not sexual.
But steeped in a different kind of Eros.
I’ve always been drawn to the primal within her—her little bent of chaos nudging my internal sense of order, stirring my inner masculine.
But that night, I didn’t gasp or posture.
The sacred masculine is not loud.
It holds, without possessing. It honours, without fantasizing.
And in witnessing her—truly seeing her—I remembered who I am.
I remembered what it means to show up without needing the moment to be different.
To anchor my root in still presence—not as a plea, but as an offering as steady as the earth beneath our bodies.
This moment will live in me.
Because like so many moments with her,
I became more myself.
I belong to myself.