White hazy skies, flooded with cloud and a loose membrane of smog surround a bustling urban scape. A man stands amidst the whirling traffic, suffocated by the hum and grind of industrial city living.

For as long as he can remember there has been a nagging from deep within. That feeling from the pit of his stomach that something wasn’t right but time and time again he brushed it off and resumed his position in the rat race of life.

Overwhelm is his constant state of being with a continuous gnawing feeling of displacement in a world which is meant to be home. His life has become automatic. Always on autopilot he has become submissive to the grind of modern life, technology at its core and humanity a cog in the wheel. When was it that he became a worshiper, slave, to a life so far from its true origins?

Outside tension builds. Noises get louder and the air gets closer. The whirling and chaos spin and wrap around him until he feels as though his feet are no longer on the ground, faster and faster until life no longer makes sense.

His mental connection begins to unravel. He searches for anything to ground him to the earth, to his very essence of being but all is in disarray. He has lost something fundamental; he has lost all meaning.

Stillness, everything stops. Panic and anguish dissipate into a state of dissociation. The world is distant and yet the lack of feeling brings him a sense of calm as if a vail is separating him from the rest of existence. He knows it is temporary but somehow it brings a sense of peace to his pained spirit.

The vail shifts, the shutters that were protecting his very core roll down as if waking from dream or a nightmare. All becomes clear before him and in this moment of vast realisation one thing is apparent, his life will never be the same again.

Suddenly a flash of light. This light is both physical and psychological in nature, it is the turning on of consciousness, of awareness and of truth.

His whole life has been a lie!

His eyes open. For a while his focus blur’s in and out, unable to adjust to the space around him. As the milky shadows and shapes begin to gain more clarity, it is though all the world looks different. Sounds become slower and his senses are Intune with every microcosm that surrounds him as if he is meeting life for the first time. His awareness is intensified, and he can see the ebb and flow of the veins on his arms and hear the pulsating of his arteries beneath the skin. Birds sing in the distance and the wind echoes through the trees around him like a beautiful siren’s song.

Suddenly images flash in and out of his mind. Insects of the forest snap in and out of vision as if trying to remind him of a place lost to him long ago. They get faster and faster until his pupils dilate with the magnitude of his visons as if what he pictures is truly there. Not a dream but almost as if they are memories of a distant past that could not be his, yet they seem so familiar.

The flashbacks quicken as if his whole psyche is transformed. Quiet. His visions bring him to a space one he knows but can’t quite recall. A place where atoms, molecules and DNA merged amongst a feeling of ultimate comfort. It is the womb.

Translucent light glimmers through pink walls of film and a deep vibration of the unborn foetus’s heartbeat oscillates against the outer shields of this inner sanctuary.

Another flash. A vison. Light through a window and a view of a young child with its hands moving in slow motion downwards like that of a giant towards the body of an insect with a devastating outcome.

The child is smiling. Its mouth grimacing with meat stuck between its teeth. Images switch between the child and the catastrophic Chernobyl disaster as if one and both are the same and the devastation comparable.

A sound begins to enter his spherical space. It is a song, like a lullaby drawing him out of his subconscious. It is haunting yet completely intoxicating, like a mother’s cry and the warmth of her unconditional love combined. His body begins to float forward as if caught on and unseen wave of a melody, being drawn towards it.

It is unclear where he is, but he is no longer in the familiar space he once was. He knows he must follow it as he feels a yearning from deep inside. The haze clears and organic forms fade in and out of visual focus. He reaches out as if to touch it but as he does, he is dragged brutally away into a state of abrupt awaking.

Looking around he finds himself in his damp apartment building with the roaring of car horns outside of his window. His body and mind feel raw as if the urge to scream is too loud to keep within.

Tears begin to fall from his eyes, and it is in this moment that you could hear his heart break. His realisation is not for him

He cries for the earth and her unreserved sacrifice she has made to humanity. She is wheeping and yet no one has listened. The screeching of construction work and the vibration of machinery suddenly emulates a heart struggling to beat, a heart breaking and the harrowing shriek as it does.

What have we done!

Panic fills his body, and just like that he runs as fast as he can to escape the concrete walls, into the road, cars whizzing past him as he spirals into oblivion, he knows where he needs to be and nothing else exists to him now.

He does not stop, running faster and faster until his unshackled feet tear and bleed.

Then silence. He arrives in the middle of the woods panting as the wind has been taken from his lungs. His body aches but it no longer matters as he is finally home. It is as though he sees the wilderness as if for the first time. His heart could cry with the relief of being in this space.

His senses are throbbing, and he reaches out his hand to meet the crisp bark of a tree.

He is like a child discovering the world for the first time. His hands run through the dew tipped grass and he can hear the breath of the forest as though he and It are one. This is where he is meant to be. Is this, in fact, where his life began?

Time stands still.

When was it that he was ripped away from the roots of his humanity and abandoned the mother that gave him life?

The light begins to fade and as if waking from a gentle slumber. He cannot fathom how long he has been in this space. He sits upright and all his being begs him to remain in the forest, but machine-like indoctrination beckons him back to the city. His heart breaks once more.

At this very moment the earth begins to shake. As if from nowhere, the ground quakes beneath him. Roots, shoot up, wrapping their vine like arms around his body, drawing him closer and closer to the dirt. A fight ensues, he resists, but they tear at his face and clothes and with one great blow, sink downward into his flesh. He cannot run.

He is pulled into the ground, as if a possession of the earth. There is no fight left in him and no point in resistance. His eyes close-all turns to black.

Time passes

A passer-by, if they looked closely enough, may see the flickering of an iris from the mound of flora and fauna which lies in the centre of the clearing. They may even notice that the thickened earth, strewn with tangled weeds and tufts of foliage appears to rise and fall gently, like a sleeping child.

The heap of foliage appears almost like a shrine; people lying upon it, praying, caressing. It is somehow alive and yet not of our world. It emits an energy that draws people to it, inebriating, powerful and mysterious yet peaceful and nurturing, calling humanity from deep within.

Over time followers appear more frequently, as if they have been infected by a virus, intoxicated and consumed.

Year’s pass. They too become embedded into the soil. It is a new evolution, one where humanity have found their way back to nature, like a flock who had lost their Sheppard they have been returned.

She, like the gods of the forest from centuries preceding, embrace this reuniting, but there is a sense of an unresolved wound, not yet healed, which causes the roots to pull just a little too tight.

She has taken back the souls of the lost and washes their sins away with her melodies of ancient wisdom. All is quiet, life is once again in perfect flux as it was before man was given free will. Harmony resumes, for the time being at least.