The Humming Fire — How I Found Zen Through Silence and Attention

 

There was a time when my body trembled from stress, and my mind was a storm of noise that wouldn’t stop. I didn’t know what peace felt like, only survival. But even as a child, there was something that kept me from falling apart — a sound that came from deep inside me.

 

I used to hum. It wasn’t a song. It was medicine. When the world made no sense, I would close my eyes and hum softly to myself, and somehow that vibration made the fear shrink. The hum was my first teacher — a small doorway to something sacred that didn’t need words. As I grew older, I forgot about that sound. I tried to survive through logic, control, and overthinking. But the noise of the world — narcissistic chaos, judgment, manipulation — began eating at me.

 

Then one day, years later, during a psilocybin journey, I remembered. My ex and I began humming together, and I felt the universe hum back. The same frequency that calmed me as a child was now echoing through every cell of my body. It was like Spirit saying, “You were never alone — you just stopped listening.”

That hum became my flame again. Now I understand that the hum is the voice of attention itself. It’s the pulse of the present moment — the sound of the soul feeding the fire of awareness.

 

When I ride the unicycle, every rotation is another spark fed to that flame. Each turn of the pedals says: stay here. Because if I lose attention, the balance disappears. And so I ride like a monk tending a sacred fire, each movement an offering of presence. I began to see everything in my life that way. The engine under my hood. The breath before I lift a weight. The pause before I speak. They are all part of the same hum. My unicycle, my humming, my silence — they are all the same meditation expressed through different forms. Each one burns away distraction until only awareness remains. That’s why I no longer chase chaos or fall for emotional traps. The manipulators, the noise-makers, the ones who can’t face silence — they all run on stolen energy. I don’t feed them anymore. I’ve learned that attention is sacred currency. And now, I spend mine only on the fire that keeps me awake.

 

The hum still lives in me — quiet but eternal. It’s the sound of my soul reminding me that I’m home, even when I’m alone. Every day I breathe, move, and listen for it. Because that’s where Zen begins — not in temples or books, but in the steady rhythm of attention feeding the flame.

 

“I am the hum. I am the fire. I am the one who keeps it alive.”