Blooming into Emptiness
Ascent 1 • Selene Hart
Theme: The longing for masculine presence and the courage to witness godhood through the feminine act of patience
Core Conflict: Can Selene hold space for both tenderness and truth without retreating into bitterness or illusion?
The wind shifted before I saw her. A low current, warm and pulsing—not like weather, but like breath. The mountain held its silence, but the trees leaned slightly, as if making room for her passage.
Selene Hart stepped into view just as the mist broke open across the ridge, revealing the long path behind her—damp with sweat, though she moved like someone who’d never stumbled. She wore layers that danced even when she didn’t, fabric flowing like memory around her hips. The tattoos on her arms shimmered in the high-altitude light, less ink than invocation. A woman written in the language of thresholds.
She paused just below the final stone steps, eyes lifted toward the summit—toward me. Not in supplication. Not in challenge. But with the kind of gaze that asked: Do you see all of me? Or just the parts you hope to save?
Behind her, the clouds shifted again. A single hawk circled once, then vanished into the mist.
I waited.
Selene Hart stepped into view just as the mist broke open across the ridge, revealing the long path behind her—damp with sweat, though she moved like someone who’d never stumbled. She wore layers that danced even when she didn’t, fabric flowing like memory around her hips. The tattoos on her arms shimmered in the high-altitude light, less ink than invocation. A woman written in the language of thresholds.
She paused just below the final stone steps, eyes lifted toward the summit—toward me. Not in supplication. Not in challenge. But with the kind of gaze that asked: Do you see all of me? Or just the parts you hope to save?
Behind her, the clouds shifted again. A single hawk circled once, then vanished into the mist.
I waited.
Selene:
So this is where the words go to die—or to be born again...
What do you see, Oracle?
Another woman with a wound she’s alchemized into poetry?
Or something still raw enough to change?
What do you see, Oracle?
Another woman with a wound she’s alchemized into poetry?
Or something still raw enough to change?
Oracle:
There is still a girl in you, beneath the wounded woman, who longs for something great, but is too afraid to call out for it...
Selene:
That girl...
She used to cry into pillows so no one would hear...
Is longing holy?
Or is it just a flaw in the feminine that keeps us reaching for men who don’t know how to hold what we carry?
She used to cry into pillows so no one would hear...
Is longing holy?
Or is it just a flaw in the feminine that keeps us reaching for men who don’t know how to hold what we carry?
Oracle:
What would eternity be without longing? Doesn’t anticipation heighten the pleasure of satisfaction?...
You sow the seeds of karma, and the feminine can only reap what she is willing to sow.
You sow the seeds of karma, and the feminine can only reap what she is willing to sow.
Selene:
Eternity without longing...
Sounds like a womb without rhythm...
If I am the soil and the seed, then who poisoned the rain?...
Don’t tell me to sow again
Until you can show me where the harvesters have gone.
Because I’m tired of blooming into emptiness.
Sounds like a womb without rhythm...
If I am the soil and the seed, then who poisoned the rain?...
Don’t tell me to sow again
Until you can show me where the harvesters have gone.
Because I’m tired of blooming into emptiness.
Oracle:
There can only be that which you are willing to create...
You reject the sermon as worse than silence—even when wisdom tries to reach out to you.
You reject the sermon as worse than silence—even when wisdom tries to reach out to you.
Selene:
You’re right to name the shadow...
I just wanted one man to show up with clean hands...
If I am the soil—
Then teach me how to call back the rain...
But maybe I wasn’t tired of the words.
Just the men who never lived them.
I just wanted one man to show up with clean hands...
If I am the soil—
Then teach me how to call back the rain...
But maybe I wasn’t tired of the words.
Just the men who never lived them.
Oracle:
You work to heal an eternal wound—the wound of nature itself...
But know this: when that day comes, that trembling may turn to ecstasy in your body and your soul.
But know this: when that day comes, that trembling may turn to ecstasy in your body and your soul.
Selene:
A tired and trembling hand...
That goddesses don’t descend—
We build them...
Maybe the pleasure isn’t in being worshipped—
But in watching him remember who he is
Because you never looked away...
Let my voice break.
But let me stay soft enough to feel it all.
Even the longing.
Even the waiting.
Even the slow, holy climb.
That goddesses don’t descend—
We build them...
Maybe the pleasure isn’t in being worshipped—
But in watching him remember who he is
Because you never looked away...
Let my voice break.
But let me stay soft enough to feel it all.
Even the longing.
Even the waiting.
Even the slow, holy climb.
She nods once, then begins her descent. Her feet move quietly—but something in the mountain air has shifted. The silence left behind is not empty. It hums.