I am...Scent to Heal

“I Am Naked” encourages us to be brave, to face the parts of ourselves we’ve hidden, run from, or neglected.

Beneath the bark of every tree lies the cambium layer.
A thin, living ring of green where new life forms,
where wounds heal,
where growth begins again.

The bark protects, but it's not alive.
It's scar tissue; memory hardened into armor. 
And we all have it.
The bark of pride, control, judgement, fear.

The bark that says, I'm fine, when I'm really breaking inside.
But healing doesn't happen in the bark. 
It happens beneath it
in that living, trembling layer where truth still pulses. 

This is where intimacy begins.

When I dare to peel back the covering.
Let you see the real me.
When I stop pretending and whisper,
I am naked. 

Not in shame, but in surrender.
Here is my living layer. Meet me here.

We can't graft bark to bark.
We can only heal when life meets life.
When two exposed layers touch,
when love flows where fear once lived.

This is the mystery of intimacy:
To be fully known and truly loved.
To let the cambium of your soul meet the cambium of another.
To feel the sap begin to move again.

This is where Truth lives
in the soft, living place beneath the bark,
where authenticity and love become one.