Somebody Knocking
Three soundings across one turn of the dark
Day 66 — May 31, 2026 — Sunday. Sixth morning on the ground, base camp, Müllrose.
Wake-up feel: 6.
Leaf. Moon in Scorpio — water. The second full moon of the month.
03:50. What woke me was not the birds. It was music: techno, carried through the forest from a festival a few kilometres off. Steady. Non-stop. At that distance the beat loses its shape and becomes one thing only — someone knocking at a door. Knocking, and not stopping. I tried to ignore it, the way you ignore a knock when you have already decided not to answer.
Then the birds. The early ones, the first to risk it, coming in at the edge of the noise — not over it, not under it. Alongside, and indifferent to it. They were not knocking. They were only saying the morning.
The sun was coming up over the fields. Mist rising off the ground between the garden and the trees, the way it lifts when the night has run cooler than the soil. I went out to it. Did the exercises. Made ready for the day.
The night before, just as my eyes were closing, the crows came. A small gathering this time, right in front of me. Short. Concise. To the point — whatever the point was. I listened. I tried to make out what they were saying. Then they were gone, as fast as they came, and I was under.
Three soundings, across one turn of the dark. The knock that will not stop and was never addressed to you. The gathering that says its piece and leaves before you have caught it — you are not owed the meaning. And the plain morning at the edge of both, asking nothing.
On a day given to listening — under the second full moon of the month — the work is not to answer everything that knocks. It is to be still long enough to tell which sound is yours, and which is only weather. Then to get up.
So: the city this morning. A warm room. Coffee. Electricity. The day, already lit.
"Seven places were on the table. Now three. What I am naming is what I need from wherever I land. Not only mine. The needs of the people who have been close to me all these years belong in this too."
Day 66 — Phase 9 — Hearing — Pericardium — Amethyst — Psalm 46 / Gospel of John
Gut Nisdorf, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Baltic Coast
© 2025–2026 Michel Garand | A Pilgrim's Fitness Plan | CC BY-SA 4.0
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