The Forest Did Not Heal Me

It Remembered Me Back into Myself

There are experiences that you attend. And then there are experiences that summon you.

Footsteps in the Forest, facilitated by John Luke Edwards and Sushant Patnaik, was not a retreat in the way we understand retreats. It was not an escape, not a break, not even healing in the traditional sense. It felt like stepping into something ancient—something that had been waiting, patiently, for me to return. A remembering. A calling home to something I did not know I had forgotten. 

I arrived carrying what most of us carry—roles, responsibilities, unspoken grief, unanswered questions. But what I did not realise was that I was also carrying something much older. Something that did not belong only to this lifetime.

And the forest knew.

The Ocean That Lives Within Us

There was a moment-quiet, almost ordinary-when everything inside me broke open.

John spoke about the ocean. Not as water, not as geography, but as a being. A consciousness. A presence that sings in longing for a companion.

And something inside me recognised that song. It was not poetic. It was not metaphorical. It was visceral.

It felt as if my heart had been holding the grief of lifetimes-millennia of longing, of waiting, of searching-and suddenly, the dam cracked. Tears did not fall; they poured. Uncontrolled. Uncontained. Ancient.

There was no story attached to it. No memory I could trace it back to. Just a deep, undeniable knowing that this grief had always been there, waiting to be felt.

It felt like my chest would explode-not from pain, but from the sheer magnitude of what had been held within.

And in that moment, something softened. Not because the grief disappeared, but because it was finally witnessed.

The Great Journey of the Soul

In the midst of that emotional unravelling came something else-unexpected.

Relief.

John spoke of the great journey of the soul. Not as a concept, but as a lived reality. A movement far larger than this one life, this one identity, this one set of problems we spend so much time trying to fix.

And suddenly, everything shifted.

The problems that once felt heavy… felt smaller. Not insignificant, but contextualised. As if I had been looking at life through a keyhole and someone had gently opened the door.

There was a vastness.

A sense that this life was just one chapter in a much longer story. That the struggles, the pain, the confusion-they were not the entirety of existence.

They were moments in a much grander unfolding.

And with that came a quiet ease.

Not because everything was solved, but because everything was held.

Meeting the Black Panther

And then came the moment that words will always fail to capture.

I met my spirit animal. A black panther.

The moment I saw him, I did not think. I did not analyse. I recognised.

And I cried again.

Not from pain this time, but from something deeper—like meeting a long-lost companion after lifetimes apart. Like finding a part of myself that had always existed, but had never been consciously known.

I ran with him. I held him. I rested my head in his lap as if I had finally found a place where I could stop being ‘strong’.

There was no need to control. No need to perform. No need to hold everything together.

For the first time in a very long time, I felt watched over.

Protected.

Held.

Something inside me melted. Not dramatically, not loudly—but quietly, like ice giving way to warmth after a long winter.

My body relaxed in a way I did not know it had been craving.

And in that stillness, I remembered what power truly feels like.

Not force. Not control.

But presence.

The Song Beneath All Songs

The forest does not speak in words.

It speaks in vibration.

On that day, we connected with what was called the soul song-not something we sing with our voices, but something that exists beneath it. A frequency. A resonance that is uniquely ours, yet connected to everything.

As we began working with the resonance healing method, something extraordinary happened.

The room dissolved.

Not physically-but perceptually.

There were no separate individuals. No identities. No boundaries.

Just vibration.

It felt as if we were all part of one organism, breathing together, sounding together, healing together. When one person shifted, the entire room responded. When one person released pain, it echoed through all of us.

Tears were wiped-not by hands, but by presence.

Pains softened-not by effort, but by alignment.

It was not healing as we know it.

It was remembering.

The Ice Beneath the Surface

The second day was not gentle.

It was not meant to be.

It was about meeting the shadows—the parts of us that quietly shape our lives from behind the scenes. The fears, the memories, the beliefs we do not look at, but live through.

What I saw within myself was stark. I was trapped beneath a frozen lake.

The ice above me was thin, almost transparent. I could see the world above. I could see light. But I could not reach it. I was suffocating. Breathless. Exhausted.

And yet… I was still trying.

There was a desperation in that image. A relentless will to survive, even when survival felt impossible.

I was screaming for help. And for the first time, I was heard.

What followed cannot be explained through logic. It was raw, intense, primal. John and Sushant held the space in a way that felt almost otherworldly. It was as if they were not just guiding the process—they were becoming it.

The release was not gentle.

It was a breaking.

A thawing.

A return to breath.

And then, sunlight.

Warmth.

Life.

Fire, Love, and Transformation

The final day was a celebration.

Not of completion, but of transformation.

The Warrior Ritual was not symbolic. It was confrontation. With everything that had been quietly shaping my life from the shadows-old doubts, fears, beliefs, memories that linger like ghosts behind decisions.

Fire-the first ancestor-was invoked. The Mother of Bones and Fire, lovers in an eternal dance, were brought together. And we stood witness to that union.

We sang. We danced. We offered parts of ourselves we no longer needed to carry.

It was not symbolic.

It was real.

There was something deeply human and deeply divine about that moment—about choosing, consciously, what we carry forward and what we release.

The Mother Who Holds It All

After the storm came something else.

Stillness.

We invoked the Mother of Bones—an ancient, incomprehensible presence. And the moment she arrived, everything changed.

I could feel her.

Not as an idea, but as a presence looking directly into me. Seeing everything. Holding everything.

And saying, without words:

You are not alone.

You can rest now.

I have got you.

It felt like being held by something larger than existence itself. Not just comfort, but absolute safety. The kind of safety that allows you to finally let go of control.

For the rest of the day, I felt like a child again.

Light.

Free.

Curious.

As if life had been reset to something more innocent, more alive.

Witnessing Healing Beyond Understanding

One of the most profound moments of the retreat was witnessing John and Sushant work with a participant carrying what might just be the deepest trauma I have ever witnessed.

It was unlike anything I had seen. They did not “facilitate” in the conventional sense. They entered the process. They held the trauma in their own bodies, as if there was no separation between them and the person.

They strained. They sweated. They howled. And in that raw, unfiltered exchange, something shifted at the root. The two of them working together had the synergy of the song and dance of fire and earth. 

It was not technique. It was devotion.

When the Land Began to Sing

Their work did not stop with people. They extended it to the land itself.

Our centre had been experiencing disturbances—electrical imbalances, unexplained injuries. When they worked on the space, the shift was immediate and tangible.

The readings changed.

The atmosphere changed.

The land felt… lighter.

Alive.

As if it had been waiting to be heard.

What Remains

I cannot say I came back “healed.” That word feels too small.

What I can say is this:

Something ancient within me was acknowledged.

Something heavy was released.

Something true was remembered.

And perhaps that is what healing really is.

Not fixing.

Not becoming.

But remembering who you have always been.

I will carry this experience not as a memory, but as a knowing.

And for that, I will be forever grateful.

For those who feel called to explore this path further, more about this work can be found here: https://wolfindark.org

Sonali Mittra