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Insanity isInsanity is the mind rebelling against itself. THE FAITH of trees By Daniel Raby 1. The Faith of Trees. There is beauty in the trees, with green that shines like gold. The sun is the halo of the trees, and on some days when the clouds grow dark and their black blocks the sun, the trees seek no shelter, but rather strongly sway under the crack of lightning. Whilst other creatures fritter and flee, wether they are large or small, and wether they are slow or have speed, all in all they sing no more, and their movement once merry and wild and bright with the force of nature becomes no more than the ritual seeking of shelter. It is a pity to watch a sad creature moaning and shivering wet in the cold. The trees however, for the duration of the storm their green darkens to a richness that comes from within. They shake and dance with the deadly wind as both a defiance and an accessory. Thunder peals from the clouds and the trees grow restless with expectancy, for the clouds bring rain, and all trees know this, that the rain brings sustenance so that trees may grow taller. And one day, so it is told firm amongst the tree-trunks, and whispered with delicate understanding amongst the leaves who clutch in fear against the wind, a single tree may grow tall enough to reach the sun, though no one knows whom this tree might be, or when it will happen. But when it is finally achieved the trees will no longer need the sun for a Halo. The trees will be a sustenance unto themselves. Such is the wisdom of trees, and their cause for revering the sun and the heights of the sky as they do. The wisdom and faith of trees also encourages them into certain acts of kindness. Though many believe the trees incapable of action, is it not true that they house the birds, and as an act of kindness do nothing to prevent the birds from making themselves at home. This is no mean accomplishment, considering the sought of mixed feelings that a bird can conjure up within a tree, what with flying so lighthearted to heights that a tree works twice as hard only to dream of, and on the destructive nature of the wind at that. Many a tree, both in the past and in the future, has wished that with all its might it could standover the birds and throw them from its branches, and many have come close to doing so. Even further, some fanatical trees suffering deep with envy, have at times desired to pull the birds from the sky, so that none may fly higher than the tree-tops again. But alas, such an act would be a small victory, for the trees in doing so would be no closer to the sun, and the wisdom of the tree-trunk tells them that the birds may yet serve a purpose beyond merely taunting and tempting them, the silent seeds amongst the branches seem to shake knowingly, and with pure potential at such a thought, though no one knows why. But still, never has a single branch or twig ever shaken with malicious intent against a bird, and this is a powerful act of the faith of trees. It is not so much the heights birds reach that can inflame a trees indignancy, it is more the birds chosen means of doing so. For the trees hate the wind as a destroyer, few things can bring down a tree so quickly and suddenly, and with such a devastatingly visual display than the wind, and many leaves and branches have been torn from the hold of the tree-trunk, to be lost forever into the great unknown. Such wanton waste without adequate compensation, the wind is evil and can only come to harm a tree. The birds so carefree, soar to places which no tree can know, the tree’s stand in awe of their height, and so love them and maintain peace with them, the birds song however is bittersweet, for it comes from above, yet it is carried by the wind, and the birds seem to delight in taunting the trees with their flight. ‘Nothing that can soar to such heights can be entirely bad,’ says the tree trunk. But still, the birds fly in the face of a tree’s reasoning, and are constant tempters to a tree’s faith. 2. The Paradox of Trees and the Nature of Their Society. The tree trunks specifically, and more so than any other parts of the tree, long for the heights of the sky. For it is their lot that they have become the centre and stubborn strength of the tree’s society, so stubborn in fact that most other animals in the wild would call them stupid. Even us humans have not attributed the tree trunks with much thought, which is probably why not much is known about their society. And besides, the trees are well aware of what the other animals say about them. So much so that they have turned the tables completely and over time come to see being stupid as a compliment concerning their faithful stubbornness. Indeed, you could walk right up to a tree-trunk and say right to its face, if it had one, that it was thick and stupid, and it would love you for it, for quite literally it has a head full of wood. Well, not really, because it has no head at all, but still, whatever it has consists almost entirely of wood. This is the reason for all of the tree-trunks glorious stupidity and stubbornness and faith, and it spreads out at varying degrees through the whole tree. The roots who never see the sun, but collect and toil and ballast against the wind, who work in the dark depths with the worms and the dead silent, life rich soil of the earth. It is the roots that love the invisible sun, who hold the force of inspiration to dig deeper and in doing so nourish the rest of the tree. The roots are full of contradictions. They love the sun and therefore cherish the darkness, they long for the heights and so must dig deeper and further away from sight. They love the silence of soil below more than the sky. They are friend to the worms. It is true words that say the roots of trees are dark and strange, and it is only by their connection with the tree trunk, through which they have been given an ample supply of stubbornness, that any animal would believe them of tree kind at all. The roots are no less stupid than the tree-trunk, but due to their complexities, and the innate polarities of their existence, they have for a long time, in fact for as long as time can tell, been endowed with powers way beyd themselves. The upper parts of the tree see the roots as the keepers of hidden wisdom, the secret strength. he tree-trunks wisdom as truth; the tree-trunk is so highly respected. It is ironic that it is also to blame for the mystical surroundings of the roots, for when the leaves cry, as they are prone to do, and when they see their brother and sister leaves blown far and wild unknown in all the directions of the wind, and they ask why and for the meaning of things. The tree trunk tells them with all of its faith shining dull and stupid as wood, that although the leaves when perished blow wild with the wind, in whatever direction, it is always to the roots that they return. And it continues by saying that although it mourns every leaf blown astray, it also celebrates the fact that its death feeds the whole, and would go even further by saying that the entire earth is made from fallen leaves. The leaves and branches listen intently, and absorb the tree-trunks wisdom as truth. It seems ludicrous that the world is made from fallen leaves, and most people would write this off as merely poetic, but I daresay there are some leaves who believe this as true, and love the earth as though it were composed of their own being and nothing else. In truth they are alike to the earth as the child is to a mother. In a sense they are one and the same, but in more immediately powerful ways they are both entirely different. The leaves are much like humankind in the fact that they face death as a reality every day, and in knowing death as something more real and constant than most other parts of the tree they feel deepest the shadow of doubt, they feel the wisdom of the tree-trunk as the light of inspiration, something that is beyond them, and which they cling to all the same as it were life itself.
It is the tree-trunk who is most unlike humanity, for as humanity values gold and all things that are rare, the faithfully stupid tree-trunk loves what is most common, namely, wood, as this is its almost entire composition, and its reason for being, it’s only way of reaching the sun. the mind rebelling against itself. |
