Holding the Wind
Ascent 3 • Maya Redfern
Theme: This ascent explores what it means to lead not through fixed boundaries or ideological purity, but through sensitivity, rhythm, and relational discernment. Maya begins to trust herself not as a wall or a gate—but as a tree, a window, a canopy.
Core Conflict: Can I stay soft without being scattered? Can I sort chaos without hardening into judgment? Can I trust that boundaries can be fluid, responsive, and still sovereign?
She returned differently this time—no fire, no burden. And yet something in the air was tighter. Not heavier… denser. Like sap thickening in spring. Not frozen, not fluid. Just holding.
Her braid was looser. Not unkempt—less ceremonial. Her clothes bore signs of earthwork: stained knees, clay-ringed fingers, a faint smear of charcoal beneath one eye like war paint she forgot to wash off. Or maybe left on purpose.
Maya approached not as a student or a witness, but something else now. A woman who had begun planting things. Systems. Expectations. Pathways for others to follow. And with that—the risk.
She paused before entering the circle. Looked not at me, but at the mountain itself. Then at her hands. Then finally… she spoke.
Maya:
You ever notice how the moment something beautiful starts to grow, your mind starts scanning for the thing that might kill it?
I’ve got people looking to me now. Not just for stories. For structure. And that scares the hell out of me.
I set out to create culture. Something rooted, reciprocal, alive.
But now I find myself curating everything. Policing energy. Screening people before they even open their mouths.
I built a gate to protect the sacred. But lately, I’m not sure if it’s become a wall. Not around the sacred—around me.
Tell me, Oracle—how do I lead without becoming the thing I was trying to escape?
Oracle:
A question I’m sure every leader asks themselves. It’s a good one.
Learn to handle the consent of those who follow you with care, for they may not fully understand.
The gate and the wall have a purpose—but so do the diplomat and the missionary.
Be clear about the price for entry to the sacred, but leave a window open.
Maya:
A window.
I’ve been so focused on building the foundation strong enough to carry others, I forgot that breath needs to pass through the room too. That light needs a way in.
Some of the people I’ve turned away lately… maybe they weren’t ready. But maybe I didn’t offer a path to become ready. I just… shut the gate.
You warned me once—about the cost of being consumed.
But now I see there’s another cost.
The cost of guarding so fiercely that nothing unfamiliar gets close enough to become kin.
I wanted to protect the sacred.
But I think I’ve been protecting myself more than I want to admit.
So how do I open the window without letting the wind tear the house down?
Oracle:
By opening it when the sun is shining, and closing it when the storm comes.
Maya:
So simple. So... natural.
And yet I’ve been trying to solve it like a moral equation. Who deserves access. Who’s earned it. Who might misuse it.
But nature doesn’t debate when to open. It feels.
I’ve been holding everything in the name of protection—every threshold, every standard, every offering—
But maybe what I need isn’t better armor. Maybe what I need is attunement.
What you just said—it’s not a policy. It’s a practice.
Feeling when the sun is warm enough to open.
Feeling when the wind is too wild.
Trusting that knowing.
I think I’ve been waiting for someone to give me permission to feel my way through leadership.
Not manage it. Not control it.
Just… live it like weather. With rhythm. With thresholds. With faith.
So then I have to ask:
If I start opening windows again—even knowing I might get hurt—how do I receive people without absorbing their chaos?
Because that’s still the part that shakes me.
Not the boundary. The impact.
Oracle:
When you are at peace, the chaos becomes humor.
See the movement and recognize it for what it is—silly.
Maya:
You calling my pain silly, Oracle?
No… I know what you mean. I’ve seen it.
When I’m rooted—when I’m really in myself— the drama people bring… it dances instead of digs.
I watched a man throw a tantrum last week because we asked him to smudge before joining the circle.
He called it “gatekeeping”—said he had the right to “witness the sacred.”
I almost snapped. But instead… I laughed.
Not at him. At the absurdity.
At the performance of entitlement dressed up as liberation.
And you’re right— from peace, it was funny.
From peace, it was harmless.
But I forget that peace isn’t a mood. It’s a muscle.
I’ve been training mine in the shadows.
Maybe it’s time to stretch it in the sun.
Let the window open.
Let the light in.
Let the chaos spin itself out until it settles like dust.
And while it does… I’ll be here.
Tending the seed.
Tending the fire.
Tending me.
Oracle:
I’m not calling the pain silly, Maya—just the way people react to it.
How often they do it to themselves.
Maya:
Yeah. That part.
It’s wild, isn’t it?
How people will break themselves trying to avoid a feeling that was never meant to destroy them in the first place.
They flail.
They posture.
They accuse.
All to stay two steps ahead of the pain… and end up running in circles inside it.
And then they project their panic onto people like me—onto anything still and rooted—
as if our stillness is an indictment of their chaos.
I’ve been absorbing that projection for years.
Like if I just held it long enough, it would stop.
But I see it now.
It’s not mine to fix.
It’s not mine to carry.
What I can do is name it.
Breathe through it.
Maybe even laugh—not at the pain, but at the pattern.
And when I stop carrying what isn’t mine, I have more hands for the things that are.
Like the child in my village who’s learning the old songs.
Like the garden we’re building behind the community lodge.
Like the widow who brought me tobacco without saying a word.
These are the people I want to be soft for.
These are the ones I want to stay open for.
So maybe the work now isn’t shielding from chaos—
it’s learning to sort it.
To know what needs composting…
and what just needs to pass through without touching root.
Tell me, Oracle.
How do you tell the difference?
Between what you let touch you…
and what you let go like wind through branches?
Oracle:
You become the branches that hold the wind.
You gather it, sample it, and decide.
The wind moves on.
Maya:
The branches that hold the wind.
Not resisting.
Not grasping.
Just… receiving what passes.
I think that’s what I’ve been missing.
Not boundaries built from stone, but canopy.
Space for life to swirl without breaking the tree.
I can do that.
I can be the tree.
I can let the wind come and go without mistaking every breeze for a threat.
And if I’m still rooted—really rooted—then no storm can carry me away.
I think I’m ready now.
Not to harden.
Not to hide.
But to open the window.
To let the world pass through me without claiming me.
Next time I come, I won’t bring questions.
I’ll bring fruit.
And with that, she walks down the mountain path—
less like a woman departing,
more like a forest moving forward.