I am at a conference center, a former retreat house, an old monastery, even older as a hunting lodge. Massive design and construction. A structure of inestimable density, consistency.

I realize that the secret I hold is insane.

I am certain that I do not hold this secret alone. That there are others moving invisibly in and around this place who know, even if partially, even if they don’t quite know that they know and/or avoid this knowing. We are here in this place at the same time. We are convening to be convened. Things are highly charged, shaky—in silence.

I accept my temporary room in the sub-basement. It is comfortable enough—but I know I cannot wait any longer for encounters to begin.

So I reach deeply to begin a whole-body howl. It feels right. With deep breathing, energies flowing through the marrow of my bones, with the full force of my diaphragm, the sound builds and builds to a transfixing crescendo, a cosmic wailing moan.

I am giving it all I’ve got. I know I want to be heard. I expect to alarm others. I expect others, perhaps all the others, to be alarmed. I expect someone to show up at my door. There will be consequences to all this. Something will surely happen. Something more important than nothing.

At last a cloaked and hooded character appears, silently scurrying by. Apparently I am to be ignored—while not ignored. I have been classified, no doubt.

So be it if this is the outcome of my waking terrors. Terrors of the place. Terrors of the oblivious silence that would only delay a reckoning, a coming to terms through an alliance of awarenesses of the drastic and tightening contractions of this very difficult birth.

I imagine there are considerable determinations being made about how the secret is to be contained among us who are face to face with the uncontainable, among us who are pressed to do so.