The Sage

I’m toying with an idea, writing a book like a novel called The Sage, would this be interesting to you? Would you want to go on a journey with her?

Introduction

I’m standing at the edge of the water, and if you’re here with me, you’ll feel it too. The stillness. Not the kind that empties you, but the kind that waits.

The lake’s calm, not because it’s untouched, but because it chooses when to respond. I learned that the hard way. For years I thought movement meant survival, that holding everything together was the same as strength. I stayed quiet when I should have listened to myself. I kept going because stopping felt dangerous.

You might know that feeling.

Behind me is a path worn smooth by repetition. I’ve walked it longer than I realised, carrying what was expected of me, what I thought I owed, what I didn’t yet know how to put down. I didn’t complain. I adapted. That’s what capable people do. But capability has a way of becoming a cage if you never question it.

I can feel the space now where old weights used to sit. It isn’t loss. It’s room.

The air here doesn’t ask me to be anything. I breathe without performing. I exist without explaining. When I look at the water, I don’t search for reassurance. I already know who I’m looking at. And perhaps, if you’re honest, you do too.

I’m not waiting for permission anymore. Neither are you, even if you still think you are. There’s no urgency here, only clarity. The rush belonged to a version of me who believed rest was weakness and wanting was indulgent. I know better now.

I won’t step forward yet. There’s no need to hurry the moment that comes before choosing. The future doesn’t push. It waits. It always does.

When I move, it won’t be to prove anything. It’ll be because I want to feel my own direction again, not the pull of habit or obligation.

So if you take anything from standing here with me, let it be this:

You don’t need to become someone new to begin again.

You only need to stop carrying what no longer belongs to you.

And the rest will follow, quietly, when you’re ready.

Chapter One - The Crossing

I didn’t expect to walk far that day.

I’d come out into the wilderness to clear my head, to put distance between myself and a life that no longer made sense in the way it once had. I wasn’t searching for answers. I was searching for enough quiet to hear my own thoughts without interruption.

The path thinned, then disappeared altogether. Trees closed in, then opened again. Time loosened its grip. I walked until walking felt like the only thing I needed to do.

That’s when I noticed her.

She was ahead of me, leaving the lake behind us, moving as though the land had made space for her without being asked. Not hurrying. Not lingering. Simply walking with intention. I can’t say when she arrived. It feels more accurate to say she’d always been there, and I’d only just become ready to see her.

There’s something in her voice when she speaks, though she doesn’t turn. It reminds me of another time. A time before I learned to doubt myself so completely. Before I confused endurance with purpose. She doesn’t speak often, but when she does, it feels like recognition rather than instruction.

I only meant to stay a while.

That’s what I tell myself as I continue walking behind her. Just a few steps. Just long enough to be certain I’m not imagining this. But the longer I stay, the more something unfamiliar settles in my chest.

Safety.

Not the fragile kind that depends on certainty or control. The deeper kind. The kind that doesn’t ask me to perform or explain myself. For the first time in my life, I feel as though I’ve arrived somewhere without having to earn it.

She doesn’t seem surprised that I’m here.

In fact, it feels as though she was waiting.

The thought should unsettle me, but it doesn’t. It steadies me. As if some part of me recognised this moment long before my mind could catch up.

The wilderness begins to thin. Light shifts. In the distance, I can see the outline of a village resting against the land rather than standing apart from it.

She slows, then stops.

When she turns towards me, her eyes meet mine with a calm that feels impossibly personal. In them, I see something familiar. Not her story, but my own. The part of me that’s been watching quietly all along.

She studies me gently, as one might study the horizon.

Then the Sage speaks.

“You weren’t lost,” she says. “You were listening.”

Her voice doesn’t fill the space. It settles into it.

“If you walk with me, leave your expectations behind,” she continues. “They won’t survive where we’re going. Bring only your honesty. Your questions. And the part of you that already knows this matters.”

She waits.

Not for an answer spoken aloud, but for the one I’ve already given by staying.

And together, we begin to walk on…..

…. to be continued