August 31, 2017 - The Un-Tree

It is no easy matter to become an “un-tree.”  In fact, I would say that it’s a bit harder to become an un-tree than it is to become a plain old tree in the first place.  I have been watching this tree as it “un-trees” for several years now.

At first I wasn’t sure if it had decided to make the change or not.  Then spring rolled around and no green leaves appeared, and then I knew that the decision had been made.  Still, the trunk and branches were firm and hard and unyielding that spring and the spring after.  It was solid and strong.  But time marched on as it always does.

The un-tree in its un-becoming.

At first it was a bit of a color change, a sort of greyness, even though the bark of many trees is often grey.  But it was a different kind of grey, a pale and ashen grey.  There was no vitality surrounding the tree.  All living trees give off a certain unseen vitality that is palpable when walking through the woods.  But the un-trees do not give off this vitality anymore.

A few more years passed.  The small twigs were the first to break off, then the small branches, and then the larger branches.  The un-tree became a large trunk with just a few broken-off large branches at the top, sharpened at the tips like spears.  The resident eagle liked to sit at the top because it gave such a clear and unobstructed view of the surrounding territory.  How strange and foreboding his silhouette looked way up there on a cloudy day.  The un-tree was still serviceable.

But with time, even those larger branches broke off, and the trunk seemed to shrink in height.  The bark peeled off, first in small patches, and then large patches fell off.  The long work of the insects had finally become evident.  The ravages of the many winters had left their mark, like claws raking across a brittle surface.  The rains swelled the inner body of the un-tree, and the harsh sun dried it out and bleached it.  Over and over, the un-tree became more un-treed. 

Then today I noticed a breach in the substance of the un-tree.  I put my eye right up to it and looked at the woods beyond.  Somehow, looking through the hole of the un-tree was different than just moving aside and looking past the un-tree at the woods beyond it.  I tried it several times, and I am certain that the view through the un-tree was different than the view to the side of the un-tree.

Withering little fibers hang from the hole and try to tell their story about the day they grew so strong and bright and tall.  But no one is listening.  The eagle has long since flown away and found a better perch.  Even the insects have abandoned it for a better deal.

Now all that is left is the view through the un-tree, and soon that will be gone, too.  The fibers will fall off and break down, and bit by bit each piece will dissolve and blow off into the wind as if it had never been.  Its substance will nourish creatures we cannot see, and the hidden view will disappear.

Like the old trick with the glass of water and the sugar—you’ve heard of it, no?  Take a clear glass of clean water.  Slowly add sugar to it, stirring with a spoon after each addition.  Let each addition dissolve completely and look into the clean and clear water.  Eventually, it will reach a saturation point where no more sugar can be dissolved, and as you look at the slowly swirling water at the top of the glass, suddenly crystals of sugar will materialize, seemingly out of nowhere, and swirl around and around in a vortex.  Out of nothing, something.

What dissolves in one world reappears in another world.  The un-tree may appear to be at the end of its journey, but somewhere else the journey has just begun.  Sometimes it is hard to know whether you are at the dissolving end of your journey or the appearing end of it.  When all is said and done, I suspect it does not really matter which is which.  The view through the un-tree remains.

August 21, 2017 - Eclipse

ECLIPSE

When the King bowed his head,

how the ancients trembled and feared!

What dread awaited, that the King should bow?

What menace was hidden in shadows?

That promised love, ebbing now,

a broken pact.

But He swore an oath!

He said He would always come.

Love now lies bleeding.

Yet man, whose heart contains the eternal spark,

gleams brilliantly still,

even in the shadows.

The King now kneels,

just another subject to the I AM.

And man discovers his own divinity.

August 6, 2017 - On Being a Seed, Part VI

[This is Part VI of “On Being a Seed.”  Click Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, and Part V for the prior episodes.]

I did not die, not this time.  I continued to live and grow quickly, but the yellow and black and white striped creature also continued to live and grow quickly, completely at my expense.  It is both a humbling and infuriating position to be in because there is nothing that can be done about it.  I did my best to focus on myself, as always.

After my initial disgust with her, we began to talk at times.  It is sometimes lonely to be a green-ribboned being in a field full of other green-ribboned beings.  We were all alone together.  I had not ventured to speak with any of them, and they did not try to speak with me either.  Most of us silently swayed in the wind that caressed the field daily, our heads turned upward toward Him.  Most of us were in a state of rapture.

Monarch butterfly on milk weed.

But I was lonely and we talked.  I asked her what it was like to move wherever she wanted to go, to be in control of her whereabouts.  She would incline her head in a way I had become accustomed to and say, “I hadn’t considered that.”  Then she told me what it was like.  I asked her many, many questions, and if she could answer me, she would. 

Sometimes she would need a full meal to “consider” my question.  It was a painful price I had to pay because I was the meal.  She ate many of my beautiful leaves, and it was a good thing I was so very good at making more of them.  It was the magic of the King, of course, that I used to make them, and that was powerful magic, indeed. 

Once she asked me what it was like to be with the King, and I began to cry.  I tried to explain His magnificence, but my words fell desperately short.  For once, she was enthralled with what I had to say.  After I finished telling her of the communion with His gold, she said, “I hadn’t considered that.”

Shortly afterward, I saw her no more.  This made me very sad because I missed our talks, but one day I noticed a green pod attached under one of my broad leaves.  In the pod was my friend, I just knew it.  I was confused and also a little irritated because I knew how she got that green hue.  It was me.  I had become a part of my friend, or perhaps she had become a part of me.  But in any case, I sadly feared she was dead now.  She did not move.

How strange.  She had caused me so much pain and difficulty, but when she was gone and nothing was devouring my leaves anymore, she left a great void in her wake.  Oh, how I longed for her torture again.  Surely it was worth it to give up some of the liquid gold to have such a friend.  All life requires sacrifice, I thought, and without sacrifice, there is no life.

So now I turned my thoughts to life itself.  How beautiful it was!  I turned my face up toward the King and decided that I wanted to give Him a gift back.  It was the first time I had thought of willingly giving anything to anyone.  It would mean I would have less.  Sacrifice is blissfully painful, it seems.  So I created beautiful pink little things.  I didn’t know what they were.  They hung all about me like pink little fronds and wispy locks.  I delighted in them and fell in love with myself.

Imagine my surprise when I looked around the field and saw that all of my green-ribboned brethren had also created pink little wisps.  Together we swayed back and forth in the field as the wind played a melody that haunted me.  I knew I had heard the song before, but I could not remember where or when.  But what did it matter?  We all danced together.  I didn’t know I loved them before, but now I knew I did.  I longed to embrace them, but I could not move.  They acknowledged the same to me.  What were we to do?

And then I heard a tiny voice beside me, and I saw a magnificent winged creature.  She was black and white and orange and so very, very beautiful.  But I was confused.  I knew that voice.  It was the voice of my dead friend.  It was unmistakable.  I was absolutely certain it was my friend’s voice.  But this creature was not my old friend.  My old friend was green and yellow and black, and she crawled on tiny legs.  She did not have beautiful orange wings like this amazing creature did.

“Yes, it is me!” she laughed.

“But, how….” I began, but I could not voice my thoughts.

She just laughed at me, though, and told me I was still so silly and young.  There she was, poking fun at me again, but it was all good because I had missed her so.  I offered her a leaf, but she wrinkled up her nose in distaste and refused.

“Where have you been??!” I asked.

“I had a meeting with the Great Alchemist,” she explained, which made absolutely no sense to me whatsoever.  She went on.  “Of all the creatures who abide by the Law, I am the only one who can have a direct audience and still be able to return.  This is why you see me now as I am and not as I was.”

She flitted about playfully among all of the pink little wisps that we had made for the King, sipping nectar and laughing gaily.  We swayed back and forth in the field, longing to touch one another, reaching out.

Suddenly, she stopped flying.  She looked at us all in amazement as we swayed back and forth in rhythm.  Then she laughed at us all the more.

“Silly things!  Know ye not that ye are gods??” she asked in astonishment.  And she flew away forever.

Her words echoed in my ears and in the ears of my friends in the field for a long time.  We swayed back and forth in the wind.  And then I knew, and this knowledge is the Second Blasphemy of the seed.  Know ye not, she had said, that ye are gods?  Then my eyes were blinded by the Light, by the brilliance of understanding, the veil having been finally removed from them.

[Click here for Part VII, the final part.]