Part 1 by Shashikala Gadepally – via https://prowritersroom.com/the-third-eye
Story so far…….
Nurturing earth in quiet wisdom birthed me, the gentle giant reflecting her regal grace. Though far flung from my origins; I am scorched, shaken, erupted to be reshaped into a towering new avatar.
Isolation became my resilience as molten chaos cooled into calm. Loneliness slowly transformed into healing when water, green shoots, and life returned to my elegant slopes. I embraced evolution, standing conscious and aware of my cosmic purpose.
As the “new normal” settles around me, a new disturbance begins to stir ~~ not one not born of nature, but of the approaching human world…
******
Part 2-
The Third Eye Awakens
They came slowly.
They tread softly and quietly at first.
They were light?footed, mesmerized, wide?eyed, whispering reverence as though my slopes were sacred.
I open-arm welcomed the multitude of seekers, unaware of different motives lurking beneath their obvious awe.
I was naïve, I was trusting. I observed and witnessed their whispers had grown into a cacophony of demands, their footsteps turned into machines, and their reverence into greed for possession.
Roads were carved into my ribs, towers rose where sweet saplings once danced, and the creatures who called me home fled from the metallic roar. I felt the old ache return — not from eruption, but from erosion of my innocence, of trust I placed in the seekers, explorers, students, and the reverent humans.
They arrived as pilgrims but slowly entered the planners. They were armed with maps that etched my body before their machines touched me. They spoke of development, a word that slithered across me like a cutting blade.
I felt the old fire stir, not the molten birth?fire, but a deeper, older vigilance. When these humans arrived with technology, drones, highways, and development plans, my third eye opened again.
Surging crowds brought with them mammoth machinery to lay down snaking roads, luxury resorts, and rituals for revelry that lacerated me in lasting wounds with bulldozers biting into my slopes.
I watched as lush dense forests were shaved for monstrous parking lots; Singing Rivers redirected into miles and miles long pipelines; and the critters started fleeing my shelter they deemed their home.
**
I remember my birth, my healing, peeping of the very first saplings and I wonder “does progress always demands sacrifice?”
“How long will I have to endure this? Will the impact be forgettable or everlastingly hurtful to the planet at large?”
How can I not rue the harsh reality that the pilgrims who set out with reverence started dumping plastic offerings while the miners drilled into my “veins”
“My being started feeling exploited, plundered, ravaged, and far from being revered.”
I wondered- “How do humans confuse reverence with consumption?”
Un-wanting, yet I gurgled small preparations to “speak” with humanity again, through tiny tremors, softer storms, sometimes stunning silence.
Their massive onslaught made me slowly become an active force again; not to erupt, but to resist.
Unexpected landslides were triggered by over?mining; sudden storms started by forests being cut.
My “third eye” opened, it made me see human greed clearly
I wanted to warn from the rooftops “I was born from fire. Do not awaken what sleeps which can end humanity with a powerful response”
My reaction felt dramatic, mythic, and fierce yet my wounds warranted it, I felt.
They scraped away the green that had healed me, razing forests into neat rectangles. Roots that once clung to me were ripped out like forgotten memories. The creatures’ roars and chirps were replaced by metallic growls.
I felt the imbalance immensely. The streams that once danced down my sides hesitated, confused, diverted into pipes. My veins were being rearranged.
“My innards were burning, stirring as though screaming at the ignorant and shortsighted progressive thinkers and the greedy afflicted.”
“Humans poked, prodded, dug and drilled into me, calling it “progress,” unaware they were tapping nerves older than their species. Every vibration awakened a warning. Every tunnel felt like a trespass into my marrow.”
“I remembered my birth, the eruption, the roar, the sky splitting. I remembered my healing, the saplings, the rivers, the creatures. I remembered I was not created to be conquered.”
“My slopes shivered, my ridges bristled and I refused to dwell in discontent.”
My defiant reactions began slowly and subtly. Mere warnings, like a rap on the wrist..
But humans do not listen to whispers. They only understand thunder it seems.
So I summoned the winds, called upon the rains, let the rivers swell with indignation. Not to swallow villages and settlements, but to defend myself from unjustified assaults.
Nature is not inherently vengeful, but nor is it ever passive.
My Third Eye Fully Opened cracking their roadways. Their machines stalled, towers trembled as if remembering that they stood on borrowed ground.
I did not erupt. I did not rage. I simply asserted myself.
My rebellion was not chaos, it was clarity. It was a clear reminder that I am not a monument for their worship, nor a resource for their hunger. I am a being of earth and fire, shaped by time, not by human ambition.
I warn with my rumblings. I stand tall, colossal, unyielding in vigilance.
The humans may return with stronger machines, louder plans, and bolder claims. But my third eye sees their intentions before they speak them.
And I whisper to the sky and the soil:
“Do not awaken what sleeps. I was born from fire. I remember how to burn.”
(PS—Recent landslides, flooding, forest fires, droughts, Covid, tsunami, earthquakes are myriad wake-up calls to respect mother nature that provides for us, and to not dominate her for our commercial greed and personal pleasure)
Part 2 by Rupa Rao
