Here and everywhere she has been, nowhere fits except that she makes it. Bliss only exists in manufacture, for all its singing and scheming to get her attention. That she knows this should be a boon, but it feels more like a burden she’s refusing to lift.

After times of flow, these shallow doldrums are always more testing. There’s a current of petty discontent swirling. She should look at the sky more. Clouds make her own evaporate. She watches inkspots instead. She’s misusing matter, shallow-breathing and keeping the Spirit at arm’s length. This time will be less underground perhaps, or perhaps not because no-one needs to see these slips; it can’t serve any purpose to be talking about your lamp’s flicker.

Repeat and fear and repeat. Far too practised in this skill. Maybe the mould is in her heartwood, and she’ll have to wait with its fruit standing out from her weak points. There’s no-one who would pay a surgeon to deal with this. Besides, even she knows the hierarchy of needs and signs off daily on her own contentment.

Stay, seeker. That’s all you need to do.

That’s all she doesn’t want, and all she can’t help.