There were the golden ferns, those ancient of plants,
teeming with brilliance now throughout the woodland floor. Laughter could be heard as the ferns posed
for a photo grinning from ear to ear.
What once was curly light green fiddleheads thrusting upward from the Earth
in the Spring, then became lush deep green and graceful fronds fanning the
undergrowth in the Summer, and then finally became the keepers of the forest’s
gold in the Fall.
There were trees hidden here and there, displaying
magnificent leaves of solid gold in the dappled sunlight that somehow found its
way into the forest. They were dripping
with wealth, the remaining birds all singing in their boughs and getting ready
to fly south following after those that had already done so.
There were the secret magic mushrooms sprouting from old
dead tree stumps, giving form to death once again as they hover between the two
worlds—neither plant nor animal. There were
the large and golden toadstools springing forth from the bases of more dead
trees. Death everywhere you looked, with
golden life oozing out of it.
I went with the intention of gathering as much gold as
possible. Then I would be rich! Then I would be prosperous! But when I pulled out my sack to fill it up,
the squirrels all pointed and laughed at me.
“Why are you laughing?” I asked. “Can’t you see all around you the golden
wealth?”
“Indeed, foolish human, we do see,” they said.
“Why are you not gathering it yourself?”
“We already have!”
“So your nests,” I ventured, “are lined with gold?”
“Oh, indeed,” they said, but they looked down their noses
as they spoke.
Did they not realize how important gold is in this
world? Did they not know the value of
the precious metal? And as if they could
read my mind, one of them responded to my unasked questions.
“Can you eat gold?” he asked.
“Well, no, but I can buy food with gold, and I can
certainly eat the food I buy,” I said.
“What if there is no food to buy? What will you eat? Can you eat the gold?”
“No, but . . .”
“And water,” he said, “what if there is no water to be
found or to buy? Then what will you do?”
“That’s not going to happen . . .” I said, but really, I
didn’t know that for sure.
“My nest is full of acorns and sweet nuts,” he said. “It is full of dried fruits and berries and
sweet grass. There is a little stream
nearby that runs from the Fall rains, and in the Winter the snow provides sweet-tasting
water. I’ve lined my home with fragrant,
bright-colored leaves, and I’ve stuffed myself all Summer, adding all the fat I
will need for a lean Winter, when I like to sleep most of the time anyway after
a Summer of work. What do humans do with
their gold?”
“Well, we put it in a bank for safekeeping. We buy some of the things you mentioned,
things of comfort and warmth and sustenance, but we put most of it away—that is,
if we have any of it left over after we buy what we need,” I said.
“Why would you buy something that is already here?” he
asked. “Food is everywhere.” And, of course, that is true, although most
people don’t realize it.
“Well….” I said, not feeling very confident at all
anymore, “We work for gold to buy the food.
I guess we could just grow and gather the food, but we don’t usually do
that—and there are laws that try to discourage people from doing so. We work for the gold and then buy the food
and other things with it.”
“Who do you buy your food and other things from?” he
asked.
“Well, we buy it from merchants who have gotten it from
other people who have worked very hard to get it. In return for their work, they get some gold,
too, but not very much because the merchants keep most of the gold for
themselves.”
“Can the people who work hard eat the gold?”
“No,” I said, “They have to buy food and other things as
well.”
He looked at me for a long time, considering what I had
said. Many times it seemed as though he
would say something, but then he just set his head from right to left and
considered again. He considered and he
considered. Finally, he spoke.
“I am very wealthy, although I have never had this ‘gold’
of which you speak,” he said. “I have
food and a warm home. I have children
and grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
I have birds for music and a sweet stream for water. I eat and sleep in comfort, and yes, I do
work for what I have. It takes work to
gather all of my food and belongings, although I have a very long season to
just eat and rest afterward. It doesn’t
make much sense to me to turn around and give away your wealth just for gold as
humans seem to do.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him it’s not even gold
anymore that we strive for. It’s just
paper money that supposedly represents gold, or at least it used to, but really
now it’s just old wood pulp. If I had told
him that, he would have laughed and spit on me, and rightly so.
I put my sack away.
I didn’t gather the forest’s gold.
I decided to leave it where it was, shining and beautiful on the forest
floor where all the animals laughed as they finished their winter
preparations. Sometimes it is enough
just to see the golden light of the comfortable forest creatures, and today was
one of those days.
I went back to my home and had a small dinner. I have often thought about the riddle of gold
and what constitutes true wealth, because gold and wealth are two very
different things. Sometimes we get
caught up in the hype of the world as it presses in on all of us, hypnotizing
us with shiny baubles and endless numbers.
We count them and count them, and they lead us nowhere. I try to remember to not let the merchants
fool me. Some days I do better than
others.
In a small cupboard in the back room of my old house,
there is a collection of acorns. I
gather them one by one here and there as I walk. If an acorn looks especially handsome, I’ll
pick it up and bring it home and put it with the others in the cupboard. Each acorn reminds me of a special walk and a
happy feeling. But I decided today maybe
they shouldn’t be in the cupboard anymore, so I put them in a bowl and placed
them in the living room as a reminder. The
cat will guard them from the field mice who try to sneak in at night. All is well in my house, and though I haven’t
got any gold to speak of, I am very wealthy, indeed.
