The Scent of a Wildflower

August 22, 2017

by Serena Marie Raphael

The dark veil is lifted, light floods in through your eyelids, that red glow signalling to open them. Not to hesitate, but seize that opportunity to look the fuck around. See the bullshit, look at it, directly. Challenge them. The fake, superficial rubbish they’re peddling. The word drugs they’re slinging. Dealing to consumer, war addicts. Hatred, fear and human flesh they feed of. The bones of the Earth they crave to continue this parasitic, self destructive nightmare.

You scratch out the duct tape, you can see. The lacerations that cover you, evidence of a life lived under empire, a child of imperial slavery. Scars of indoctrination, bruises, marks and damaged tissue cover you like scales.

The fresh blood weeps from open wounds. The moment you see, she has them too. The same gashes and gouges. Open cut pits, fractures and industrial shrapnel, broken limbs and septic symptoms which ache her. Killing her. We feel each other, our connection based on torture this culture carries out. On the skin and bark, evidence of abuse visible.

Teeth marks of educators and faux guardians, imitations of nature. Hold on to the veil, pull it down, torch it. Cut into it, as you pull it down with clenched fists to the point of drawing blood with your nails. Once you have it within your hands you tear it, shred it apart, knowing each split equates to acknowledgment. Exposed as a fucking lie, the awareness is liberating. Freeing. Myths, war lord propaganda perpetuated by culture to maintain the hierarchy of power.

The fables and fantasies told to me crumble away to the expose steel bars. The powerful awakening reality, motivation to blossom into a critical thinker. Fierce contemplator. Empire rebel.

Raining questions fall like confetti, covering me softly, with but one staring back at me. Forcing me to critically ask, how do I resist?

As Arundhati Roy said, “once you see it, you can’t unsee it. And once you’ve seen it, keeping quiet, saying nothing, becomes as political an act as speaking out.”

It’s burning holes in me. I refuse to stand in line, take orders from above, place the veil back and mindlessly follow hollow shells. Frantically tearing down my life, piece by piece, I needed to strip myself down, feeling naked and exposed. Fragile to the truth, I found my emotional umbilical cord back to nature. I needed to shed away cultures latches. Firstly, I had to accept responsibility for my life, own up to my being, human animal consumption, my existence on Earth, my privilege, in a commonwealth occupied land, responsibility for my actions, words I speak, steps I take, relationships with nonhumans and humans, love for natural communities and personal behaviour.

I’m in a jail cell, bars so high I can’t see where they end. What do I do? How do I act towards the jailer, my cell mates? How do I act? Steel and concrete encapsulates me, humans with guns guard the halls. How do I act in captivity?

Time is too short, I will not allow them to separate me from my mother. Resist the “one way for all” mindset that as an individual animal I must resist the herd mentality and acknowledge my being as independent.

They cannot control my spiritual love, regardless of the bars the build and threats they shout. As prisoners, they will not break the love and spirit for the wild and education. This form of resistance comes with learning, or rather unlearning, washing away the lies dominant culture lacquered within me, listening to new languages, ways to connect, surviving on her terms, letting go, embracing every second. Noting time as the sun moves through the trees, speckled light determines my biological clock. The digital devices that screams at me, tossed into the ether.

Breathing her air in deep, fully within my lungs, expanding my ribs, her peppermint oils coat my insides. As my vulnerability becomes my strength, the natural paced view of her splendour. Silent pondering wander becomes my daily endeavour. Gradually covering myself in her scent of wild flowers and gum. Smells of soil, ocean salt, sweat and southern precipitation. Mental understanding, acknowledging my misconceptions and fear. Fear of judgement and failing, not living up to the idealistic activist hallmark. But rather, be me, my authentic emotional self, naturally wearing my own skin.

It continues, never ending turns and bends, inclines almost break you, the trail curves on. And so, I keep walking. For that is my stride. Trekking into the unknown, she takes my hand. Holds me close. I feel her, around me, next to me, touching my hips. She kisses my skin with rain from the heavens above. Rain that smells foreign, as it falls and soaks me. Saturated in nature’s unfiltered aroma become my signature. No pen name, no separation from her.

She begins to transform me into something that is her. I am an animal. Wandering through her wild, her crazy, and the untamed, no fences or road marks. These paths have no names. My civilised is fading away, disappearing with every step I take, deeper with her. I can’t feel alone, I’m never alone. Bird’s fly above me, kangaroo’s beside me, emus running in front of me. The soil supporting me, and the wildflowers befriending me. She guides me into her embrace.

I’m home.

I’m starting to understand her story, how she speaks through the breeze, the whisper of the leaves, the rustle. A flow the sounds becomes my interpretation of a new language. My teacher’s, brother’s and sister’s. the relationship I need, the balance. I will earn her trust by bleeding for her, my skin is hers, by walking with her. I will feel her, as she feels me, her beauty.

Attracted to the sound of cascading water, I follow…

[Serena Marie Raphael is a 25-year-old Veterinary Nurse inhabiting Western Australia: life-long anarchist, radical ponderer, critical thinker, student of life and wilderness. She is a contributor to the  critical thinking collective, Wrong Kind of Green.]