I have seen the Dreaming, and I have heard tell of the Hunting, the hunt that I am now on because I can never not be. I can never not be seeking, though what I find may differ from what was promised during the Dreaming. I hunt because my ancestors hunted for a hundred thousand years. Under a dark sky. Before fire and steel. I will always be hunting.

But what I need now most is the Sickness, for it is a sickness that cures, a fever that cleanses. When I think of sickness I think of the pit in my stomach when I remember the Dreaming, the depths I went to, the lure of voices and visions promising special wisdom, promising special knowledge. I want to feel ill when I hear a voice call me a prophet. I want to feel ill when I remember any part of the episodes. Because the real sickness is overloving the Dreaming. Because the real sickness is wanting to divorce too much from the grounding of the hunt. From the grinding of herbs and the tending of wounds: these things keep us level, keep us here.

Seekers often seek a little taste of the Dreaming, with drugs and meditation. But I have had enough; I am full up of dreams and do not want any more. Let me dream of running and of tending fires, and not of great God in His Heaven and Angels and Prophets. Let me get ill when I have that longing, let sickness train me like a dog. This is not for you.

The further I get from my visionary episode the more I feel tired and confused and disappointed when I remember it. This is the Sickness: an exhaustion with the facts of the case.

Sometimes on a hunt it takes years and years to crystallize an insight, and the only thing we can do is just hope we live as long as it takes for wisdom to find us. When wisdom finds me I want to be writing. Let the Lord of the Dreaming say to me, why were you not praying to gods as I asked, why were you not calling yourself a prophet as I asked? If he is wisdom, let me throw myself out the window. No, I will heed the Lord of the Sickness, for he is a good guide, a great healer, and a gentle presence. Yet, I will not be some great healer tending to the universe and its ten thousand angels and holy beings. I will not make a name for myself to be recalled with awe through the ages. I will not heal every wound I have ever felt and be returned to the ancestral state, the pure body free of trauma. Like I was asked to. I will tend the wounds I have, for now. I will heal enough. I will walk with a limp and a pain that flares up when I remember my troubled dreams.