“Probably. Do you feel safe with me?”
“So far. Part of that comes from the fact that I ran away from home to do something exciting, and you’re the one I ran with, even though I had just met you. Any sane person would have looked harder at their second thoughts. But you never felt scary, even for a nanosecond.”
“If you question your sanity, you are probably sane. But we know the limits of sanity, and we are where we are. This is much more fun. Furthermore, extraordinary does not mean unbelievable. Extraordinary means more than ordinary. That is where we are.”
“Imagine if speaking with trees, learning techniques from trees, was an ordinary feat on, say, Earth. Nobody would be able to say they were in the middle of nowhere when they were away from houses and stores ever again. It would be the middle of everywhere.”
“Trees see the world with very different eyes. They do not often have the option of moving very fast. Except for here, I suppose. Then again, these mobile trees still know the secrets of being still. That is perhaps why they are good at telepathy.”
“Ah, good point. Let us practice too.”
We sat facing each other, with our knees nearly touching. I was the thinking person first. Cedar had said start with a color, then get more complex. I thought of sunshine and daffodils, bees on dandelions, and birch leaves in autumn. I played canary songs in my mind, and remembered the scent of corn cooking over a fire. I imagined a breeze disturbing a wheat field, and tiger eyes shiningboth the animal and the stone.
“Yellow?” asked Puddle.
“Mmmhmm! Your turn to think.”
I let my mind be still. I concentrated on my breath a moment, then moved into a zone of zero thoughts. I sat in the fuzzy blank space between spaces, and let myself be open to ideas. My closed eyes filled with a lazy afternoon sky experiencing high-pressure conditions.
“Blue. So blue you would think it was purple.”
Puddle smiled with a wink, “Let us try images now.”
“Your turn to go first.”
“The category is animals.”
The red glow of the early sun pressed against my closed eyelids. In the mingling shadows, I saw shapes. They felt like fur and freedom, bounding through long grass, and luscious manes. “Lion,” I ventured.
“Horses.”
“Both are large mammals. Though one is a predator of grasses, and the other of gazelles. Ok. The category is.. more animals.”
I thought of bubbles and blue, of buoyancy and sticky salt. My mind made acute angles in the forms of teeth and fins. My imagination swam through fathoms of the sweet sea, then came to blood, and hunger, and chaos.
“Some sort of fish?”
“A shark. They’re known for murdering people in bloody melees.”
“How deadly.”
“Yeah, somewhat. Actually, deer kill more people than sharks do every year. They’re known for murdering my tomato blossoms. I think when deer kill people, it’s mostly because they don’t look both ways before crossing the street. Fools. We need better bridges. Also, falling out of bed kills more people every year than deer.”
“Life is fragile.”
“Yes, yes it is. Appreciate it when you’ve got it.”
*~*
We practiced mind-swapping images until the aroma of lunch tapped our shoulders and flicked the tips of our noses when we turned to look.
We followed something savory to the Apple camp. The Elderberries had taken over the cooking fire with frying pans, tempeh, oyster mushrooms, and onions. They had a chocolate and berry syrup to go on top. Surprisingly, the syrup complemented the savory stir fry well. Apple and elderberry turnovers waited for dessert.
Lunch was my favorite time to feast. My stomach was awake enough to appreciate it, and there was plenty of day left for the rest of me to use the food energy.
The Elders were expert flute makers and players. Their music had no lyrics, but still sang of strange beings and legends that forgot time, of death in life and life in death. Their notes flowed freely over mossy stones and ancient hills filled with secrets, and were arranged carefully as flower petals. Each change asked again what happened here, whose lives created the stories that roamed this land? And the answers had to live within the realm of music, because to translate those to spoken language would remove the essence of the tale.
My spine tingled as it awakened to such mystery.
Puddle and I did the washing up after lunch to show our gratitude. We danced around each other in mostly silent cleaning mode, as the Elders’ music made our minds ponder what might have been and what could possibly come next. Every time I spoke in sporadic bursts, I forgot to include the thoughts that led to my words. However, Puddle flowed along with what might have otherwise seemed out of context, and I for him. I had a slight sneaking suspicion that our practice of reading each other’s thoughts had left a few linked strands.
My growing compulsion to visit the Birches whispered in my ear that this afternoon might be a good one to stroll by their camp. We shared a name. I wanted to share stories. Puddle said he wanted to explore the Oasis further, and we agreed to meet by the bridge when the sun reached a twenty-four degree angle toward evening. With a hug and word of appreciation to the beautiful morning, we parted ways.
*~*
Sticks and Songs
Ferns flirted with his knees as he walked the trail parallel to the river. Fallen logs watched him with their dragons’ faces and moss scales. Canopy light fell green and dusty in strategic patches, and the shadows flickered. They tricked his eyes to thinking frames were missing from the silver screen of life.
At first, he saw a tipped-over stump with wild roots. That was until she stood up and peered at the fallen stick in her hand. Her hair stuck out at all angles. Leaves and bits of twigs tangled at the ends. Her dress had the appearance of earth and moss.
Their eyes met. Her stare reminded him of the calm, steady gaze of a bison, whose gaze is calm and steady mainly because of the immense power behind those sky-fed eyes. He could tell she carried answers to questions he never considered, but should have. She knew the words to songs that changed reality.
She stepped closer. The undergrowth gripped her skirt as she walked, and examined its myriad of dusky fabric scraps. Her feet were bare and listened to the ground with every step. Sticks, sea green with lichen, twisted at strange angles from her basket. The raven at her feet picked up another twig, and held it up to her, but she had paused her collecting.
“I know you,” her voice was the gravel-whisper of a long winter. “You are a world changer. You think that the places you go leave their mark on you, and you carry memories of those places with you through your worlds. To truth, you are half correct. Your presence alters those worlds just the same. Every step, every interaction changes the path of those you meet. Sometimes, your changes are subtle. But you do not know your power. I see times, memories that hang on your bones, where a word from you has molded a new path for another. World changer, do you know who I am?”
“You are the second being I have encountered on this planet with the appearance of a person,” he answered. “However, what one appears to be does not always dictate what one is.”
“Clever. Menially tactful.”
“In other words, considering everyone I have met from this world, there is a good chance you are a plant.”
“Ahh.”
She picked up the stick that the raven kept offering with hands that had dirt so embedded in the cracks of her knuckles that an ocean could hardly wash it away. Her hands were of the earth. If she held them to the sun and rain, there was a decent chance that they would sprout.
She gave him the buffalo gaze again, and motioned as if she had a secret, “The songs that hug your bones tell many stories. They shape your heart and your face. You are one who has seen much, and lost much. Your shoulders have seen sunsets, faded horizon fires that opened the sky to infinity. On your ribs hangs a memory of a sky so filled with time that everything close to you o
verflowed with extraordinary meaning because you could feel its proximity. Galaxies swirled from your lips as you sang to eternity. The rocks you sat upon smiled with your words, and began a harmony outside the range of your hearing. But you felt it in your marrow. You felt it in your soul.”
That moment passed worlds ago, yet still held magic for him. His connection to the ether of life was powerful as a first kiss, full of wonder and a little clumsy. “That world. Yes. I wonder if those rocks still sing.”
“Perhaps. Rocks hold to songs like the sun holds heat. They radiate their identities from their cores. Watch long enough, and you can see their identities change. Listen with the right sense, and you can hear everything.”
“Some senses are easier to deal with,” he weighed.
“We all have our favorites.”
“What is your favorite?”
She accepted another stick from the raven before answering, “It would be my sense of construction. I gather pieces of strength and beauty from moments of destruction, and build structures from those materials. Eventually, those art projects take on a creative life of their own.”
“What do you do with the pieces that lack strength and beauty?”
“Those parts, those lonely, angry, broken, pained parts helped build the strong and beautiful parts. They stretch and test the parts I gather. After they have served their purpose, they are composted. They are left as memories and transformed into soil for further growth. If they are not treated and transformed, they turn into regrets. It gets sticky once it gets to regret.”
“How do you transform regret?”
“Love, patience, forgiveness. Acceptance. Discussion. Understanding. Overall, it depends on the regret. I see that your bones carry regrets as well as joys.”
“I abandoned my people so abruptly.”
“Do you wish to let it go?”
A hermit thrush whistled its tinkling wind chime advice as he considered her query. “Part of me does. Another part of me wants to hold that regret because it comes from unfinished business.”
“May you resolve what needs resolving, and carry always strength and beauty.”
“Thank you, though the chances of that are microscopic. I have lost my way home. At the same time, I am my home.”
The raven cawed once loudly, and twice subtly, then spoke in a midnight rasp, “You are there and you are here. You are this, and that also. Lose yourself. Fall apart. Learn what is important to keep close. Find yourself. Then find yourself again.”
She listened to the bird with smiling eyes, and added, “Your heart is complex. On your shoulder blade perches the story of meeting your traveling companion. You work in harmony.”
He nodded, “She saw me enter her world. That had never happened before. We do have something of a working harmony. It has been easy to find harmony in this world. The trees keep things balanced.”
“There are many chances to find or create balance here,” she agreed.
He nodded again. The hermit thrush sang its affirmation, while it simultaneously claimed its territory through song.
“You have a great job to do,” she said. “I see the tip of that unfinished story peeking around your elbow. Be brave. Be vulnerable. The power of vulnerability is far greater than the power of fear. Vulnerability does not equate to fragility. In fact, it is strength. When you are vulnerable, your mind and heart are wide open. When you are open, you create a place for love. That love is pure power.”
Puddle tilted his head in contest, “Love has brought pain.”
“Things in pain are drawn to love because they know that love is a healing force. Vulnerability does not equate to safety. When you are vulnerable, you are open for attack. Something in deep pain might try to come in and ravage the place, and leave wounds that turn to scars. I see your scars. Sometimes it takes lifetimes for those scars to heal. Sometimes those scars, yours or someone else's, need more time to smolder in order to be in a place to heal. It is a tricky balance.
“Remember, vulnerability can leave you open for attack, and it can leave you open to incredibly rich experiences. It can let you see into the heart of a matter. Love your vulnerability. Trust your love. Find ways to pick up the pieces. A good blanket and cup of tea always helps.”
Puddle said, “I have met arrogant creatures during my travels. What if arrogance was an attempt to cover up fear of vulnerability?”
“It can be a scary place,” she affirmed. “We all show our insecurities in different ways.”
“The Cedars said they used thoughts of reverence to create their sacred grove. Reverence is the opposite of fear. It entails respect for the existence of the place, creature, or your own self. Respect would remove arrogance from the equation.”
“Trust that,” she said. “Your unfinished story calls for your vulnerability and a lens of reverence. Then, you will be a healing force of love.”
*~*
I strolled through the forest with bare feet and half a song upon my lips. Most of the words were mumbles that held the emotion of a gadabout classifying leaf types, and the various textures those leaves made for bare feet when their petioles broke away from their stems.
My heartbeat increased its tempo the closer I got to the Birch camp. We shared a name, and I thought that would have a calming effect. Instead, my nerves twanged like a banjo that didn’t quite know what it was doing. I paused my leaf song. My breath had become too shallow to keep it going. All that kept on were my tentative footsteps.
When the Birch camp first came into view, they looked like they were busy appearing to do important tasks, like they wanted to be interrupted in the middle of looking impressive. It clicked. They were as nervous as I was. They knew I was coming. Forest trees whispered all sorts of happenings to each other. My insides calmed at the thought, and my outside smiled.
“Hello,” I called. “Do you mind if I join you?”
“We sent you a thought invitation this morning,” came the reply. Their voice sounded like silver bells, mist, and catkin sessiles sifting through the morning sunshine like snow. Their voice also held latent power. Despite their fragile looking skin, they had a special hardiness that let them grow in places others could not. They created fertile soil for others after years of leaves grown, shed, and decayed. They created beginnings for others. I noticed it in their voice, with ears that did more than hear.
“A thought invitation?” I pondered. “I didn’t hear anything specifically, but I did have an almost overwhelming inclination to venture over here. It felt like a good day for visiting.”
“Quite. We’re glad you followed that. You heard our invitation without consciously realizing. There are several matters we would like to discuss with you.”
“With me? I’m honored, and also have no idea about anything I could be useful about in a discussion. It’s you and everyone else here that I’ve been learning from. I’ve been experiencing some few things I’m familiar with, but in new ways. Like the fire last night. I’ve danced around a fire before, but last night I danced myself into a new being. I needed the atmosphere created here in order to do it. I was a phoenix.”
“You’re carrying yourself differently than yesterday.”
“I feel it. It was like I was walking along one path of life, and the effect of that experience caused me to angle in a slightly different direction. At first, the effect feels subtle, but further on in my life, I feel the place where I will find myself will be far different from the place I would have found myself. Experiences tend to do that. It’s all part of the journey.”
“You have been on a long journey. There was a time when you knew what we knew. There was a time when you were as we are.”
“Oh.”
“You could be more impressed.”
“Impressed because I forgot things?”
“Impressed because you used to be as we are now.”
“So is that better or worse than what I am now?”
“It is different.”
Finding a help
ful answer here was like squeezing tears from a Weeping Willow, who were often much less sad than their name implied. They didn’t actually have tears. Truth be told, Willows would have promptly turned any of their tears into notes of obscure music that floated through dark corners of dusky jazz bars.
But. I got it. I changed. We all change. The things that didn’t change tended to be the ones that went extinct. We all forgot things. Why rub it in my face? I didn’t know what they knew anymore. How could I know what they knew in the first place? What did they know?
“Ok, so I’m different. How do you know what I was like? I was like you? Like I had roots and leaves and innate knowledge of the cycles of the planet?” How cool it would be to photosynthesize for real, soak minerals through semi-permeable tissue layers, and flirt with the wind? Sassy wind.
“We have ways of knowing many things. You had fine roots and leaves. You come from a strong line of Birches.”
“Oh.”
“You could be more impressed.”
“I… was a tree?”
“Yes.”
“No way.”
“Yes… way.”
“Wait a second. I.. was. a….. tree?”
“All chlorophyll and sclerenchyma.”
“Huh.” The short sound of incredulous acceptance.
It sort of made sense, though. Early memories started to puzzle out and show the big landscape of my life, rather than do their usual casual stroll until they jammed themselves in wherever they thought best. Still, the logistics of such an undertaking were overwhelming. My brain overflowed for a moment, and I watched an ant navigate around a clump of grass while my subconscious processed alongside my conscious mind. I was a tree. No wonder I could hear my garden friends so well.
Among the steady gaze and ancient knowledge of the Birch trees, a memory unlocked itself from deep within my mind.
~
I slumbered through the cold and darkness. The impression of endless cycles hung dormant in my core. Hungry deer tore at my ankles in search of a hint of frozen sap. My buds huddled together through the long nights, whispering stories to each other over and over to take their mind off how tightly they must crouch to survive. Each eternal night pushed me further into my dreams until the only thing that existed in my world was silence. Even the deer stopped visiting.
Puddle: A Tale for the Curious Page 15