I wake very early in the morning to stoke the hearth fire back to life. Although spring is unfolding gently across the land, the mornings are still wrapped in the mist that rises from the waters overnight. The heat of the flames that lick the dry burdock stems warms the early morning chill from my hands. I feed the fire so that it may feed us. My knees sit in the groove that was worn by my mother’s knees, and as I rest here, I feel her around me, though she has travelled through the water to the lands of the ancestors these two summers past.

I can feel the pulse through the earth beneath my bare feet, the heartbeat of the land. Drums and voices throb between the trees, this tiny scrap of ancient forest, clinging on in a deep and hidden ravine. Many years, many lives have led towards this point and I am ready.