The sacrificial animals had been slaughtered that evening; for the ancients knew that every living being that comes into the world does not come solely from its mother\u2019s womb, but is severed from the unseen realms of the heavens, and this severance leaves something behind on earth while also incurring a debt to the heavens.<\/p>\n
The meat had been divided, the fires lit, and the prayers offered; but there was one more thing everyone knew. Although the sacrifice\u2019s blood belonged to the earth, its spirit could not remain there, and if the person tasked with carrying it failed that night, the path for the child to be born would remain incomplete. That is why all eyes in the camp searched for Simana without drawing attention. Simana sensed this but spoke to no one.<\/p>\n
When night fell, everyone withdrew. The women tended to the child, while the men sat silently by the fire. Simana, however, stepped out of her tent and went to the place where the sacrifices had been left. There were still warm marks on the ground; the scent of cut meat, mingled with incense, hung in the air like a heavy veil. It was a task she had performed countless times before, but this time there was an unfamiliar heaviness in the air.<\/p>\n
Simana knelt down, placed her palm on the ground, and closed her eyes. She sent out the oldest call she knew from within. Normally, at this point, the air would shift, the wind would change direction, and a faint vibration would rise from beneath the earth; the spirits would signal they had been summoned, and a path would open. But this time, nothing happened. Not a stir, not a sound, nor the sky\u2019s usual parting\u2026<\/p>\n
Simana did not open her eyes. She thought this was a delay. She delved deeper, calling from a place even older. She placed the voice of her ancestors beneath her own.<\/p>\n
He waited\u2026 Again, nothing happened. It was then that he realized this wasn\u2019t silence\u2014it was a rejection. When he pulled his hand out of the soil, he sensed that the victims\u2019 spirits were still there; they hadn\u2019t risen, hadn\u2019t ascended\u2014it was as if they were stuck to the ground. He felt a heavy pressure in the center of his chest, but that night, he couldn\u2019t ascend to the heavens. And this was the first time it had ever happened.<\/p>\n
When Simana returned to her tent that night, she didn\u2019t feel defeated; she knew this was an obstacle placed before her, though its name had not yet been spoken. She sat down on the posts, set her drum beside her, and waited for a long time without doing anything; because she knew that on some nights, searching for a solution gets in the way of understanding the real question. She allowed herself to unravel first, and then to solve. She spent the night just like that.<\/p>\n
When the second night came, Simana did not go to the same place. Because she had learned something from the first night, and the path had changed. This time, she made preparations inside her tent. She lit the fire in the center. The fire was small at first; she let it grow. As the flames grew, shadows climbed the walls of the tent, then hung down.<\/p>\n
Then he took the herbs out of his bag and tossed them one by one into the fire; the sharp scent of juniper mingled with the softness of sage, and then an older, deeper scent spread through the air\u2014the scent of a plant whose name has been forgotten but whose path is still remembered.<\/p>\n
When he picked up the drum, he took deep breaths. He rolled the drumstick in his palm for a moment, as if searching for the rhythm not outside himself but within. Then he struck the first beat. On the second beat, shadows stretched toward the walls. By the third, the rhythm was established.<\/p>\n
This time, Simana did not summon the spirits; she merely opened the door a crack and waited. For a while, nothing happened. Then the air inside the tent grew heavy. The flame of the fire flickered for a moment. The incense smoke did not rise upward; it spread out to the sides. And Simana realized that the unseen ones had arrived.<\/p>\n
First, the presence of someone was sensed; they were not visible, yet they were not absent either. First, one person. Then another. Then all of them. This time, the spirits responded. But this response was not a word. It was a direction\u2026<\/p>\n
Simana silenced the drum. She raised her head and looked in the direction indicated. The tent\u2019s entrance was closed, yet she could see outside.A dense, heavy, and ancient darkness\u2026 The Black Forest. A place where branches brushed against one another, where light never reached the ground, and where time flowed slowly. And within that forest, a still lake with a black surface. The Tree of Life\u2019s staircase was right there. Until now, she had thought it rose beneath the beech tree. But this time, the path had changed.<\/p>\n
He set out after midnight. The camp was left behind. The fires dimmed, the sounds fell silent. The open breath of the steppe gradually gave way to a deepening darkness. As he approached the forest, the wind died down. The ground softened. The sound of his footsteps faded away. When he entered the forest, the world was left behind.<\/p>\n
The trees had grown close together, their branches almost completely obscuring the sky. There was no light; rather, it felt as though she were walking inside something invisible. As Simana moved forward, the sense of direction faded; there was no right or left, only a pull inward. And after a while, she reached the shore of the lake.The water was black. Like a deep eye, it had a surface that drew you in when you looked at it but did not immediately reveal what lay beneath.<\/p>\n
Simana bent down. She brought her hand close to the water but did not touch it. Just then, a thin ring formed on the water\u2019s surface. Then another. The lake seemed to expand for a moment; it was as if it had grown even deeper. In that instant, Simana realized that this journey was not a path she could continue on her own strength alone, as she had in the nights before.<\/p>\n
Her eyes grew heavy. Her breathing slowed. And right there, at the water\u2019s edge, she slipped into a trance without any resistance. Then she let go of her body. And she fell.<\/p>\n
Immediately after the moment she thought she was falling, Simana did not hit the ground. Instead, the fall transformed into a spiraling transition, and as the weight of her body slowly dissolved, the darkness behind her eyelids gave way to an indescribable light.<\/p>\n
When he opened his eyes, the first thing he noticed was that the place where he found himself was less a tangible space and more an abstract state of being. When he saw the lake stretching out before him, his breath changed of its own accord.<\/p>\n
Simana realized that this was not merely a lake, but the place where life\u2019s first breath was taken\u2014as Ba\u015fkam T\u00fcle\u00e7 had described years ago. S\u00fct-Ak-G\u00f6l\u2026 The place where the soul is first received in a single drop, and where life remains connected to the heavens.<\/p>\n
The lake was filled not with water but with light; yet this light was not a dazzling brilliance that caught the eye, but rather a soft radiance that expanded the soul and reminded one of something long forgotten.<\/p>\n
Its surface was still; yet it was not motionless. It was as if countless subtle vibrations were circulating within it, expanding in invisible rings without ever touching one another. The lake\u2019s shore was invisible; it had no boundaries. It was impossible to tell where it began or ended\u2014one could only sense its presence.<\/p>\n
Simana took a few steps. She thought her foot had touched the water, but she didn\u2019t sink; the lake carried her. Because this was a place that didn\u2019t judge by weight, but recognized the essence.<\/p>\n
And in that moment, a sense of peace washed over her. This peace felt like the reemergence of something that had long been within her but had been hidden away.<\/p>\n
Just beyond the lake, a majestic figure rose toward the sky. Mount S\u00fcr\u00f6\u2026<\/p>\n
The mountain did not look like an ordinary pile of rocks; rather, it resembled the sky folding in on itself as it rose. The closer one approached, the larger its peak appeared, yet the farther away it seemed the more one gazed at it. On its slopes, light and shadow intertwined, and within this interplay, countless beings moved.<\/p>\n
When Simana looked closely, she could make them out: the Seven Kuday, the Yayu\u00e7\u0131, guardian spirits, and spirits that accompanied humans\u2026 Each existed within its own distinct order, yet all coexisted without any confusion. This mountain was, as it were, a center where existence itself was organized.<\/p>\n
When he looked back at the lake\u2019s shore, this time he noticed the movement. There were creatures rising slowly from the water\u2014three-horned goats. Puras…<\/p>\n
Each of its horns seemed to point in a different direction. Its fur was milky white but blended with the light; the more you looked at it, the more its outlines faded, and as it walked, it moved not by cutting through the lake\u2019s surface but by emerging from within it. Its eyes were deep; within them lay the silence of ancient knowledge.<\/p>\n
Simana smiled without realizing it as she watched them. For these beings were not frightening; on the contrary, they carried a purity that had existed even before the world was created.<\/p>\n
After a while, another movement began on the surface of the lake. Golden sandals appeared. First one, then another, and then their numbers grew. There were people inside them. But these people were not the same as they were in the world; there was neither deficiency nor anxiety on their faces. It was as if they had been freed from a burden, yet had not fallen into a void.<\/p>\n
Simana looked closely. She recognized some of them. The village\u2019s old-timers\u2026 Those who had moved away\u2026 Those whose names are now only remembered but who still live here\u2026<\/p>\n
And at that moment, the words Ak\u00e7ora Kad\u0131n had spoken years ago echoed in her mind:<\/p>\n
\u201cThose who are on the right path in Acunda will find happiness there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Simana now understood what this meant. Along the shore of the lake stretched sandy areas that shimmered like mother-of-pearl. People were walking along these shores, sitting, talking, and sometimes laughing.<\/p>\n
As the golden sandals glided across the lake, he realized that some spirits remained together as a family. This was not a place of solitude; it was a place where the bond continued. The ancestors had not been separated here; on the contrary, they had remained together in a purer form. And this bond did not remain confined to this place\u2014it extended downward, to the earth below.<\/p>\n
Simana realized in that moment that these spirits did not dwell solely here. When necessary, they would descend to touch the lives of the living. They would provide guidance, clear a path, and sometimes even avert a disaster.<\/p>\n
His eyes scanned the crowd. He saw his mother. His father was there, too. Ak\u00e7ora Ana\u2026 Ba\u015fkam T\u00fcle\u00e7\u2026 Tem\u00fcr\u2026 They were all there.<\/p>\n
But this encounter was not a confrontation like the one on the second floor. Here, no one was missing; no one was incomplete. Everything was in its rightful place.<\/p>\n
At that very moment, the surface of the lake rippled with a subtle yet profound vibration, as if touched by the fingertips of an unseen power; this rippling occurred beneath the water\u2019s surface, while the surface itself stirred gently, like a delayed echo of that inner movement.<\/p>\n
In the wake of this vibration, a drop\u2014as if torn from the depths of the lake\u2014slowly rose upward; yet this ascent was less a movement inherent to the nature of water than an effort by an intention, a call, and a destiny yet to be fulfilled to make itself visible.<\/p>\n
This drop stood out clearly from the others. The moment Simana\u2019s gaze touched that drop, she felt\u2014in all its raw vulnerability\u2014the faint contours of a face not yet formed, the silent tremor preceding the first breath that had not yet filled the ribcage, and the pure, fragile anticipation of a beginning untouched by time.<\/p>\n
The drop rose slowly, paused for a moment where it touched the lake\u2019s surface, and then, leaving no trace, broke away from that surface and began flowing toward the world. As Simana watched this ascent, a second movement emerged at another point on the lake\u2014this time in the exact opposite direction\u2014but this movement heralded a downward flow.<\/p>\n
The surface of the lake rippled again, but this ripple was heavier, fuller, and more resolute; for this time, what was coming did not possess the lightness of a spirit about to be born. This drop carried the weight of a being whose life had come to an end. There was a change in the light\u2019s form but not in its intensity; it was as if this being had not merely existed, but had lived out and fulfilled its existence.<\/p>\n
It, too, approached slowly, touched the surface of the lake, and\u2014without creating even the slightest ripple\u2014disappeared into the water as if it had always belonged there.<\/p>\n
Simana had held her breath without realizing it. Because what she saw was not an image, but the revelation of an order.<\/p>\n
A spirit was descending into the world. A spirit was returning from the world. And these two movements were not two separate events following one another, but two different aspects of a single truth occurring simultaneously; neither came before nor after the other, neither was the beginning nor the end.<\/p>\n
In Simana\u2019s mind, concepts that had until then seemed separate\u2014even contradictory\u2014came into contact for the first time and remained intertwined; for in that moment, she fully grasped that birth and death were not the two ends of a line, but rather two distinct coils of the same spiral.<\/p>\n
There was, in fact, no difference between the beginning and the end. What created this difference was solely a person\u2019s own understanding, their own fear, and their own limited perspective.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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