A Sapling’s Tale

From the sky I fell from gripping talons.  Windblown swirling, I ricocheted off waxy leaves and rested on foreign soil protected by towering stems.  My arrival was quick but my journey far from over.  I sank into a cold embrace. Darkness enveloped me as I learned to love the underworld.  ’Twas far less noisy down there.

I sat in a comfortable claustrophobia for more time than I care to remember but it was a lifeless state, void of motion and emotion.  My soul craved something more, something free.  After much pondering I cracked my shell just enough to extend a finger.  Toward what, I could only speculate.  Blackness provides no context but fear was never an option.  I cracked my shell again—the second time wasn’t as difficult—and stretched in an opposing direction.  The more I reach, the sooner I’ll grab onto something, I thought.

Extending my shoots, one side grew cooler and quieter.  The other warmed, sensing muffled vibrations.  Though I wanted to stop and savor the progress and bask in a successful run, no amount of patience could hold me back.  Intrigue sat just beyond my reach.  I could smell it.  I could feel it seeping into my veins and my limbs craved it all the more.

My footing was amply secure but the rumblings from above were too enticing.  With one final push I clawed at the remaining loose ends and discovered a new atmosphere.  Immediately a rush of joy perfused through me.  It was light.  It was delicious.  Finally I could breathe.  My reality was numbingly fickle before emerging.  But after, illumination.

Growing henceforth came naturally.  Alas!  Had I understood the wonder of sunlight, I would have never been so timid!  Newfound awareness had its downsides, however.  Vulnerable and exposed, the elements began to stun me.  One freeze could break my thimble neck.  One flood could uncover my hidden layers.  After enough weathering I understood and eventually embraced vicious storms that rattled my depths because transformation always followed in some unexpected way, and there is nothing more energetic than a fresh start.

With each new season my core grew a little more firm.  Branching out became effortless and my roots spread across new domains, steadying a thicker base.  To expand I had to sacrifice malleability (or was it freedom?) for rigidity.  In truth, I had no control over my path—I was shaped by the winds and rains.  Realizing that my strength increased not with willpower, but time and nothing more, my desire to conquer faded into contentment. Listening became my greatest ally.

Some might say that impressionable youthfulness is the ideal state of being, but the more complex my network of wiring, the more heightened my perception.  Simply put, with more growth—usually at the expense of turbulent weather fluctuations—my antennae felt more connected to the world around me.  And what is life without sensing?

The world is an unusually busy place with self-centered creatures doing what they can with what they have to get by.  Pestering insects nibbled at my heels, leeched to my skin and walked over me, but there is a joy in having life and death fill my corridors.  Butterflies squeezed from cocoons.  Webs caught nourishment.  Squirrels frolicked.  Birds wooed.  Colonies and hives were constructed.  Fungi recycled my leaves into further sustenance. Buddhas pondered beneath me.  Eggs and larvae were spared upon my highest branches, others were not.

The creatures and their bustling movements were so painstakingly beautiful.  For years, I felt interconnected but cut off.  I felt an urge to move, to travel, to explore.  Though large, I felt small.  Though pivotal, I was quite marginal—a piece of furniture or a home at best.  My bark cracked with pressure and knots surfaced, yet there I stood and accepted my place.  Time grew my sense of meaning and appreciation as well as my volume and depth.

I gave shade.  I gave shelter and food and even life.  I felt.  I contemplated.  I soaked up knowledge and nutrients.  I interacted with what cosmos lay within my reach.  One of the more intelligent species discovered that we consume the very chemicals that moving creatures discard, and vice versa.  I find it rewarding that without us they’d be immobile.  Therefore, we live and move through them.  The wisest among them help us bloom or simply let us be.  The wisest among us stand vigilantly and create self-worth from our connection to the underworld and to the sky, from our longevity and our impermanence, from our ability to provide and be provided for.

There are plenty of us standing silently in foggy meadows, but I’m the only me that has ever lived this life in this place with these memories.  I have become the old sagacious one with nothing but observations and stories to plunder.  Be it known that as the life force within me fades and my limbs slowly shrivel, I will ungrudgingly transform my exoskeleton into the substance needed for others to experience the same.  And I wouldn’t have it any it any other way.