“The Night I Listened”

by Emily | Ash and Bloom 

I spent my childhood rooted in one house, on one piece of land, with walls that changed colors as I grew, but never shifted. So when marriage brought with it a life of moving—again and again and again—it felt like being constantly pulled from soil I hadn’t yet sunk into.

And I’ve never loved moving.

Packing on a deadline, sorting memories under pressure, letting go before you’re ready—it’s a kind of gentle grief, even when you know it’s for something better.

During one such move, my stepmother told me,

“Every few years, you either need a good move or a good fire.”

And after more moves than I care to count, I understand now what she meant.  There comes a point where you’d rather just be rid of it all if it meant you didn’t have to evaluate one more thing for the keep or toss pile.  Only, you don’t actually want to burn it all down…

But really, moving can be a good thing— a sort of forced purge that makes you reevaluate your life and the sheer amount of things you’ve held onto over the years.  Like, do I really need to keep this baby outfit my girls wore? Maybe.  But do I need to keep all of them? Absolutely not. 

And sometimes we have to be uprooted to discover where we truly belong—and what we plant ourselves in matters far more than the things we leave behind.

So sometimes, something has to burn away before something else can take its place.

But one move and one house in particular felt different. I didn’t mind the purge as much because it meant I was getting closer to moving in. We had been looking for a bigger house for our growing family for a while and this was the one I had been waiting for—it was perfect.

In fact, it was almost as if it wasn’t just a house, but a threshold.

A Place Set Apart

It was a three-story brick home nestled into a hill in Mississippi, surrounded by seven acres of moss-draped woods. The back of the property bordered a vast forest held in trust, untouched and still. The trees were ancient and humming with quiet stories, the kind that made you feel small in the best way.

To reach the house, you’d wind up a long drive and enter on the second floor, with staircases that carried you up to sky-lit lofts or down to cool, shaded rooms below.

There were windows everywhere—windows that caught the light, and the shadows, and the deer that wandered through the trees in the early mornings. We moved in just before the world shut down in 2020, and that house became our refuge. A holy kind of hush lived there and in its silence, the children’s laughter rose like a song, filling every corner with life.

We had updated much of it before moving in, but the kitchen we left untouched—for the time being. We knew it would be a lot of work and planning and decided to settle in before figuring it out. The floors were an older tile, cabinets were a darker wood and there was a blue tile backsplash that accented the walls along with an awful custom switch plate. The stove was ancient, gas-fueled, and layered with the cemented stories and stubborn grime of the two families before us. Sometimes, I liked to imagine that this kitchen was holding on to memories we hadn’t earned yet—

The Word That Wasn’t Mine

One night, I climbed into bed and began whispering thanks for the day. Gratitude has long been my anchor, a sort of slow unwinding of my heart before sleep.

Then, as if from nowhere, a single word came:

FIRE.

Not my thought. Not my voice. Not connected to anything I’d been thinking about. Just… there.

Sharp. Clear. Forceful almost.

I froze. Questioned it.

Had I imagined it?

The logical part of me began its spiral—dismiss it, reason it away, but something deeper tugged. Not fear— but curiosity. Trust.

I sat up and looked out the long window beside the bed.

And there it was.

A glowing blue figure standing still among the trees. Hooded. Quiet. Radiating light that felt electric and impossible. The moon was full, yes—but this was not moonlight. This was something else. Something other.

I reached for my phone, but something in me stilled. Doubt crept in. Surely that has to be my imagination.  Still, I got up, softly, so I wouldn’t wake my husband.

And I followed the whisper.

The Impending Spark

I moved through the house room by room.

Living room—nothing.

Stairs—fine.

Kitchen—

Gas. I smelled gas.

I ran to the stove—one of the knobs had been nudged just enough to open the flow and gas had been slowly leaking for hours.

I turned it off and rushed downstairs where the pilot light sat, waiting like a dormant spark. The gas had already seeped its way down the staircase, threatening action. I grabbed a fan, reversed the airflow, pushed it back upstairs and through the opened doors, letting the night air in and the gas out.

By the time I returned to the window—the figure was gone.

The Knowing

To this day, I don’t know who—or what—that was, although I have some theories. One thing I do know for sure was that it wasn't my imagination and that trusting myself enough to listen made all of the difference.

The truth is that we live in a world that prefers reason over intuition. Science over faith. Logic over knowing.

But what if we just honored the whispers?

I wonder how many disasters we could avoid and how many moments of peace we could claim, if we simply allowed ourselves to listen to the goodness and truth within ourselves.

Since that night, I’ve stopped brushing off the quiet nudges and I’ve started believing that the still, small voice inside me isn’t a whisper of fear—but a flicker of wisdom.

And that, just maybe, that whisper within isn’t just mine.

Perhaps it’s the echo of something older, wiser, and woven from the same thread that stirs the wind, bends the trees, and keeps the stars from falling.

It doesn’t always make sense and it isn’t always loud.

But it is there and it is begging to be heard—

You simply need to open your heart, be still and listen.

With wonder and a little more trust,

Emily

Ash and Bloom