I can distinctly remember walking out to the back of the space and being struck immobile by the vast, majestic power of the infinite night sky over the mountain. It stopped me in my tracks and I leaned back on the bench and tried to remember how to breathe. I quickly lost any sense of how long I had been there gawking at the stars and everything in-between.

Karen’s voice came from behind me and landed me back in my body for a heartbeat. “Stay in the stars…” Hmmm, I thought, thank you, though I am note sure there is any alternative for me right now. Her voice added, with a slight wobble in it, “Oh, and don’t look down.”

Whoa!!

Yes, of course, I immediately looked down when she said the word down.  The ground was a steaming liquid gravy, a thick, swampy ooze. There were no more stars, all submerged beneath this bubbly, brown molasses that seemed to be rising quite rapidly.

Out of this heaving mess emerged a gigantic form, that to me, could have been some creature that Conan the Barbarian would square off against on the cover of one his pulp-tastic novels. It was scaly and long like a crocodile, and had a wide-mouthed head with bulbous eyes like a frog.

The Frogodile slooshed right up to me with a flick of it’s huge tail and yawned open it’s sticky, wet maw before me.

Now, it didn’t strike forward to devour me, it just hung there, a gaping, icky doorway into the unknown. My insides became jelly and I knew I had to die here, however, it had to be my choice to do so. I am blessed to have stood before quite a number of strange doorways that all led to the unknown and what I have learned is, whatever I am ready to become is always waiting for me, on the other side, in the unknown.

So, I drew in a big ragged breath, acknowledged the jelly fear for the fuel it truly is, and leapt into the Frogodile…

This song is an expression of some of what I experienced in the realms of the Frogodile –  one day soon I will have to write out a full-ish account.

Grasp the deepest roots, pull them up, pull them through.