To Perceive Is to Participate
I am not someone who can be understood all at once.
Like the land after rainfall, I hold things that only surface in the right conditions. Parts of me emerge in shadow, others in light. Some memories come through as wind; some truths arrive only when I’m still enough to hear them. What you see in me will always depend on where you’re standing, how you’re looking, and whether you’re really here.
I’ve stopped trying to explain myself to those who only want the highlight reel, or those who listen just enough to fit me into their narrative. There’s a difference between being perceived and being known. There’s a difference between curiosity and reverence.
I’ve come to see that I’m not here to be figured out. I’m not a map to be solved or a story to be summarized. I am a being in motion, with layers that move like tides. Sometimes what’s hidden is not withheld out of fear, but held sacred, waiting for someone willing to slow down and feel, not just look.
Animism taught me this. The same way I approach a tree or a bird or a shifting sky, I’ve learned to approach myself. With attention, with patience, without needing a conclusion. I am not a fixed identity. I am a living field. A sensing, changing, becoming being. I can’t even meet the same version of myself twice.
And the same is true in relationship. I no longer mistake proximity for intimacy. Being near someone doesn’t mean they see me. Real connection is built slowly, with presence. I feel it in someone’s silence. In the way they pause before responding. In whether their eyes meet mine with expectation or with respect.
Some people want quick access. They want the parts of me that are shiny and available. But when someone comes with gentleness, when they don’t rush, when they don’t try to fix or label or own—I soften. I reveal. I become.
Like the land responds to weather, I respond to presence.
This is the way I live now: relationally. Not just with people, but with everything. I don’t separate the way I greet a friend from the way I greet the wind, or the tree growing wild outside my window. I’m in a constant exchange. Sensing, responding, allowing. Whether I’m with another person or alone with the birds, I know when I’m being received. I know when something is mutual.
To perceive someone fully isn’t about getting to the center. It’s about being in relationship with their edges, their silences, their seasonal shifts. It’s the willingness to return again and again, knowing they’ll never be exactly the same and neither will I.
So I no longer ask to be understood. I ask to be met. Fully, presently, and without rush.
Because I am not a destination. I am a rhythm. I am a prayer in progress.
To witness me is to participate. To love me is to listen. And to walk beside me is to remember that everything sacred reveals itself slowly, and never all at once.
