By Brittany Fentress

My body has sensed a warning and a feeling of fear, wariness, and apprehension fill me. 

My family tenses at  my hesitation to move, my fright, and they still themselves watching my every move. My children and mate are keenly aware of my body tightening and my attention focusing on something in front of me. Something they cannot see nor understand. They wait in stillness for what I may do next. 

I am wide eyed and staring at something I cannot yet place except for its energy is full of fear and dread, or is that me full of fear and dread? 

The sounds in the woods around me become painfully clear in my ears. Each frequency vibrating with an intensity that tightens my gut as I stare unmoving at this thing. My body tense and ready to run at any sound or movement that comes from this unknown being in front of me. Untrusting.

This unknown thing, this elusive vibration of energy that I cannot place in memory but deeply fear.  I know it. I know it well. I recognize its calling. Yet I wait. 

I dare myself to move my ears so that I can feel the vibrations of the electric energy emanating in air between me and this thing. So that I understand what it wants me to know. 

A whisper on the wind across the woods:

 “We are one, you and me. You can run from me and face me again or embrace me now in acceptance, stronger with the knowledge I have for you,” said Fear.