You often don’t recognize the normal sounds of life until they are disrupted. They fade into the background, forming a symphony that scores your highs and lows, your successes and triumphs: The ringing of bells to tell the passage of time. The calls of kith and kin going about their daily business. The grinding buzz of crafting tools, steady beats of axes, and the soft scraping of hunters dressing their latest kills. All dance in time to the pumping bellows of the breath and the swinging of limbs directed to their tasks, but beneath it all, the steady dance of the heart, softly moving humors along their way to maintain the balance of life.

You never realize how important something is until it’s gone.

You can never truly understand the meaning of silence until you rest like a tree, your arms outstretched to the morning sun, the rays soaking through your flesh and filling you with light. The thoughts and passions that drive creatures seem insignificant compared to the songs of birds, the dance of winds, the slow seeping coolness of rich, dark soil full of moisture and tiny seeds of life below…

It is a gift; one unasked for and unearned.

It is a curse; forced by a greater power and paid for in blood.

It is a duty; taken up with zeal so that others may yet grow stronger and the balance be restored.

They say that the songs of a Maiden are pure and full of the joy of discovering youth, while the voice of a Mother is silent, yet full of the memory of song. I think this deceptive, as Mothers can still sing, if merely following the rhythm of a different drum. Lost is the fire and passion of Spring, the yearning desire to Know and Name, instead given over to the steady determination of Summer, where tasks *must* be done lest disaster come.

Gone is the birdsong, sweet in the morn, and remains the hunting cry, sudden and shrill.

You don’t know what you have until it’s gone.