I have been here in Sunrise, IN for almost three weeks now. For all that it doesn’t look any different from the places I come from, the landscape still feels alien to me. I don’t quite belong here, yet.
Originally, I intended to bond with the land slowly – as naturally and organically as possible. The problem with that approach, though, is that I won’t belong here until I have bonded to the land. I won’t feel safe. Not at school or in town or anywhere but in the power-center I’ve set up in my apartment. That realization came to me slowly, over the course of the last week. So I set about planning how to spin my web here more deliberately.
Last night the sky was full of heat-lightning. The moon was waxing and gibbous; it was the hour of Mars. There was a school “rave” party scheduled on the lawn, and a thunderstorm rolling slowly in. I did Earth Breathing as I walked from my apartment to the center of campus, where I cast a circle in the great open lawn and called upon the Elements and the Quarters to make me a part of the land and it a part of me, “so long as I am relevant to the school” (which, as a college student, is as long as I am either a student and/or contributing alum). I released the circle, promptly made friends with a bunch of potheads, and later attracted the attention of the first serious-seeming witch I’ve yet to meet on campus.
Once the power-high wore off, I slept well and deeply and had vivid, school-related dreams.
This morning, I continued my practice of Earth Breathing on the way to and around the school, cementing and deepening the bond. I already feel more like I belong here. I’m more comfortable, more focused. I will now be better able to do the work I came here to do.