1. "A forest", says the voice that resides somewhere between the static on the am radio next door and the low ebb of distant traffic, a hypnagogic mirage that comes early and elusively.

Visions of trees appear in the ensuing sleep cycle and upon waking, our dreamer knows to leave the city, at least for a while.

2. A forest indeed: a row of prevailing hardwoods, a flat bramble-less floor, and a spring gently bubbling from a nearby knoll. Not far into the woods, the stream grows to a creek and wistful nostalgia arises with each twist, turn, and turbulent eddy.

3. The water constantly changes as the shape of the embankment remains more or less the same, a reminder of time. Our dreamer, as he walks along the creek, is outside of it, observing the entirety in either direction; a perspective is granted:

Not this time, but the other one
since we're already there.
Shed the light of a billion half-spent suns,
it was too much to wear.

And when the view is broken, the panorama stays.

Not this place, but the other one.
You can see it from here.
Just a mote in the eye of something large.
Washed in fire, bathed in tears.

And when the view is broken, the panorama stays.

4. Our dreamer can serve as a simulacrum for many different personalities and now she is called Patricia. Patricia saunters happily through the wood, reflecting on the am radio alarm preset, the ebbing of distant traffic, and things like that, glad to be away. When a fox appears, she ponders the freedom that its visage conjures in herself. The fox dances.

5. Everyone aims for the top of the world (though it is very cold up there) and in this forest, greater panoramas are offered from many bluffs scattered throughout. The top of the woods awaits as our now nameless dreamer looks for paths granting elevation. Ascension feels good.

6. It is at this point that our dreamer is filled with a windswept invulnerability, a red-faced elation that comes with freedom, quietness, and the cleaning of inner turmoil. The wistfulness of the creek, now a distant trickle from this altitude, returns to mind and an inner fanfare replaces the anxieties of the daily grind.

7. Patricia comes to mind. Patty to friends. Let us learn to identify with our avatar and hear the story from her own mouth:

Out in the world of blackberries glimmering
and my friends whispering,
I'm not a part of all that I see but can't feel cause I'm suffering
the weary weight of arguments, paperwork, endless thoughts,
yet then I make myself go

Out in the world of blackberries glimmering
and my friends whispering,
I'm not a part of all that I see but can't feel cause I'm suffering
the weary weight of arguments, paperwork, endless thoughts,
yet then I stop and see:

A fox stands by the stream side.
She sees me but she won't hide.
Her heart beats in a rhythm
that pulls me into thralldom.

8. The ascent to higher grounds has paid off. Before, our dreamer pondered only the panorama of the creek. But from here, the creek is a thin wisp in the greater constellation of forest activity, a fractal branch of an elaborate ecosystem that itself is a grain in a cosmic array. The new panorama invigorates our dreamer.

9./10. Now prepared to return home refreshed, the dreamer naps and dreams of dreaming of trees, of experiencing revealing vistas, of the dancing fox; a psychedelic introversion that reminds of the ecosystem of which we are apart, how simultaneously alien and familiar it all must remain.