Messages
The World Tree
31/03/2009
Standing strong, tall and proud, an ancient tree that has witnessed so much and weathered many storms. In its branches are the homes of birds, so carefully woven these down-lined nests for the young, insulated against drafts, a secure and sheltered haven for the many families that come together quite happily under the same roof – the canopy of leaves stretching its protective arms, filtering sunlight and moonlight in equal measure.
Great fingers curling, reaching out, gnarled with age yet supple too, containing, holding this space yet still growing, each year, creeping towards the Heavens, spreading in a still-wider arch, touching lives.
The shade below on the ground dappled and the carpet of grass adorned by the five-fingered leaves that grace it – discarded on one level and welcomed at the next. Enriching the soils, creating shelter and protection for the many insects living at the base. The family of ants burrowing into the soft earth, digging its colony, setting up camp, constantly on the go this way and that, endless automated actions driven by a higher intelligence or instincts that we like to question. A knowingness perhaps, that there is a role to be taken and actions to be performed – a purpose to serve that is of benefit to the whole community – each playing its part, fulfilling the pre-ordained plan, it’s just how it is.
Sitting beneath the tree, mindful of the ants, a family enjoying a picnic. Protected by the shade, comfortable as they can be on the soft grass, the great roots snaking around them and diving deep underground. A network below the surface that can’t be seen – worms wending their way and transforming soil into goodness, aerating and paving the way for other creatures, smaller still, all making their home below the surface.
A microcosm of life, fed by the rains as the drops soak into the soils, warmed by the sun as its rays penetrate into the top layers, raising the temperature, creating a microclimate. The cooler depths below home to yet other insects and larger creatures, tunnelling beneath the roots, establishing their own homes and heading off in their own directions – all going about their daily business, assisting others in their efforts and just fitting in to the natural environment – working in harmony with it.
Layer upon layer of different forms of life, some intricate, others simple, yet all highly complex if we observe the workings of their communities, their behaviour and structures and ability to create – to weave, to procreate, to hibernate and then re-emerge, or to transform: mutating effortlessly from one form to another in stages. All without thought. Without our faculties for reason and logic; what we see as lower forms of consciousness displaying remarkable ingenuity. A myriad examples of Nature’s prowess, from the most unimaginably fine patterns to dazzling displays – some camouflaged to blend in and others shouting ‘here I am’.
A bit like our world if we stop and think about it. Those who like to remain in the shadows and others who prefer to be more flamboyant in order to attract a response. In Nature, seen as a positive trait – all designed to find a mate – or provide means of protection from predators if we are lucky enough to be a chameleon and able to completely adapt to surroundings. Ingenious – who could have thought of it? Darwin of course had his theory and others their own, we are each capable of coming to terms with it in our own way.
What wonders are waiting to be discovered. Nature teaches us, it shows us, by example, ‘intelligent designs’. It sparks ideas and highlights aspects of our own nature, mimicking or mirroring our traits. It has inspired flight – as helicopters take to our skies, who would not think of dragonflies? We try and emulate its perfection yet often fall short of what we hope to achieve. Mostly, we like to put a lid on Nature – we aim to modify it and control it to suit our needs or purposes. We manufacture synthetics and try to extend the life of substances, and produce disease resistant crops, and breed new hypoallergenic species, and eradicate certain genetic strains, and introduce more hardy grains. All to boost the economy and to feed the world’s growing population – to sustain our lives. To give us more choices, more options, more flexibility or just more ways of expressing ourselves as individuals – spandex and lycra, velcro, vinyl and plastics, petrochemical compounds and reconstituted fleeces – up in flames in seconds if we get near to heaters.
When Nature creates, it isn’t on a whim. Each unique part of life has its own life, and with that life, a purpose. A responsibility, some kind of Divine Plan, a ‘meaning’ or a use, however trivial, because it is designed to contribute in its own way, no matter how big or small, to the wellbeing of the whole.
We can lose parts of this whole – as species become extinct and are lost or replaced or simply adapt to new conditions, yet we can’t deny that there is some kind of function or purpose served in their existence, regardless of whether we choose to see them as helpful or harmful. Sharks for example, part of the web of life, yet feared when they take a life. Microorganisms too small for us to see with the naked eye, but nevertheless a crucial component in sustaining the entire network of life. Wastes contributed by one, harnessed by another – excess converted and by-products utilised in clever processes – no loose ends left untied. Everything has been thought about and balance is obtained when everything does what it does naturally – in perfect harmony. It is a system that works, that is self-adjusting, intelligent, and far superior to our attempts at replicating it.
The only mistake – the perceived level of contribution. The manner of our creations constitution – the life-cycle or life-expectancy and actual use – all factors. Our ultimate wellbeing: our continued thriving and health. The disposal and breakdown and take-up in the natural order or system. The implications of extending a shelf-life and introducing durability, and of playing with chemicals that we’re never designed to be extracted, or altered from their natural state. The creation of waste that can never be allowed to dissipate. Toxins and radioactive materials that are a danger or a threat to all of life and diametrically opposed to its natural state – is this what we intended to create? Cities to inspire awe, when it’s Nature that knows the laws.
We only need look at the results of our actions to realise the consequences of them and we know, by what we see in front of our eyes (without the benefit of hindsight) the implications, as we continue to harness the Earth’s resources in the name of technology and progress for the betterment of all – for civilised society – for our own evolution. To fit our own view that it is all of benefit, for look at how far we have come – how much easier our lives are than those of our forebears. How could we live without all these modern conveniences – isn’t the entire idea of evolution the march towards mastery?
Man’s intellect, proving he has the power not only to change the world but to create, to improve on Nature’s design, to bring added comfort and to fulfill promises, to provide security. A package deal – ease and convenience available at the supermarket without the need to understand the seasons, or to labour, or to nurture and watch our seeds grow to become the healthy and strong providers we need to help us maintain our wellbeing.
Trees provide our oxygen. They hold the balance that produces rain, they ensure the soils are supported – the entire environment functioning as a cohesive whole that cycles – from rain to dew and mists and frosts, each state of transformation converts the elements necessary to sustain life. So our air remains pure – so our skin remains pure – the pores of the Earth no different than our own crevasses, filter systems, receptacles and depositories. Intelligent functions all working away without our comprehension or intervention.
Yet if we know all this, how can we live with ourselves? We can become innocent bystanders, or put our head in the sand, or we can speak up, and take the stand. We can all find our own way of taking simple measures that we believe have integrity. To use less plastic, to recycle, to process our waste better. To use grey water, to start a worm farm and compost and eat organic – to preserve the heritage varieties of seeds and till our own patches of earth, claiming back the vitality and enjoyment of our own ‘labours of love’.
We can reduce our emissions, and increase pressure with our political submissions. We can plant a tree and contribute to our community. We can make the world the place we want it to be – go back to basics, eat more fruit and vegetables, exercise more – do all the right things we know will help. Think biodegradable, buy green – for we know what answers this dream. Even move from the cities to fresh country air – but wait, there’s a catch, we need to prepare.
The cost of living is the price we must pay, for this is the result visible in our current day. We exchange our labour and we pay our way with money that enables us what we need in order to live – with simple means or beyond them, depending on our dreams. A structure is in place that demands that we, as consumers, pay for what we use. We are locked into an agreement – we receive a supply and in turn supply the cash or credit to cover it. We don’t do much ourselves, we buy in services and products to meet our needs, a form of exchange, yet always with a middle man – us. Purchasing commodities and giving up the hours in our day instead – engaged in activities that are not always directly connected to what we need to survive.
It’s all very simple in theory. Spend the day in our garden for example, and we’ll soon pick the produce – a form of direct exchange of labour for tangible reward. Choose to spend the day doing something else and receive promissory notes in the form of currency, or more often, a readjustment of electronic digits in a bank account where they are accumulated, and use this to purchase what someone else has created, so we can survive.
The first method requires investment in land and patience, the second is accessible to anyone, at anytime. However, we are left with a dilemma. As our concern grows over what it is we’re eating and how things are made and what we’re actively supporting, it’s up to us to decide what’s good for us or not. To check labels, to find what is freshest and to limit the use of goods making use of child or third world labour for example, because we don’t want to knowingly say we agree with it by continuing to buy it. So not only do we need to work hard in order to make a living to by the things we need to live, we need to keep educating ourselves and monitoring our purchases and initiating new ways of helping to save precious resources.
We can choose hybrid cars and be on a clean-up committee, we can congratulate ourselves when we switch the lights off for a day, or just try and do things a different way. This is the world we must live in – our reality – our paradigm, the conditions we’ve created for ourselves, the legacy of previous generations and the Industrial Age and wars, science and politics – the world arena holding the bigger picture and the benchmarks to which we all aspire.
What is it we desire? To be free – to not be beholden, to have a choice, to not be locked in to this user pays world?
How can we be free? Land is not freely available. It is carved up and divided, and allocated, and owned, and we must pay to have the privilege of living on top of it or enjoying it or using it, or as custodians, improving it. If it is not ours or someone else’s it has been claimed by the Government or State – every forest and rock and mountain and stream has a jurisdiction, a territory it belongs to, or a classification, a mark on a map – however vast or inaccessible it will eventually be ‘discovered’ and named, or part of someone’s fame.
Even if we dig in our own garden we must pay council rates or levies. Yet if we live off the land we reap many rewards. Our food is alive, not tampered with, satisfying as we’ve provided for our own table. It tastes better, we know it’s brimming with goodness – we’ve grown it with love. We’ve had to keep tending it. We’ve observed Nature and harnessed the elements to our advantage. If we still have the knowledge we’ve acknowledged the cycles of the moon. Our livestock runs free, living from the scraps. We’ve created a little ecosystem and try to get everything on a level where it is sustainable – just like in Nature, and in turn, we are provided with sustenance.
The opposite of course, is dependence. Created though lack of what we need in order to survive, or rather, through the elements that we need to survive being owned, controlled and distributed by others. Without a spring, bore or well on our own (mostly) land we have no direct access to water – we need to use town supply, or collect our own water from the rain.
Everything we need we buy. Shelter, food, clothing, tools and transportation, giving us the means by which to ‘go about our lives’ and top find a sense of fulfillment and enjoyment. The satisfaction of completing tasks, and the social engagement from sharing as we undertake them. Interacting, playing a part, making ourselves useful – finding a purpose even if we’re not sure what it’s meant to be. Trying to contribute and to make it all ‘meaning-full’, because at times it can seem like we can’t escape it.
Work, rest, work, play, work, eat and sleep, work. An endless rhythm punctuated by highs and lows and rounded into fullness by our emotions – we get to experience how it feels. A bit dull sometimes – not up to our expectations or the life we might have chosen for ourselves? Routine, because we’ve fallen into one? An endless cycle of trying to keep our head above water long enough to catch our breath? Or joyous? Filled to the brim with everything that we need to keep us content, happy even, and better than that, excited about the possibilities that lie before us, the doors to be opened and the endless surprises that continue to show us just how good it can all get.
Up there on our cloud, seemingly immune to what’s going on with the rest of the population – we like to think of it as living in ‘La La Land’ or somehow removed from ‘reality’ and all its failings. It’s not something we all aspire to for it is seen as being out of touch, or somehow beyond or better than the average, or delusional – the place reserved for the stars or those who insist on shining more brightly and commanding attention or creating a fuss, elevated in our own eyes, admired, yet apart.
Most of us are focused on those tasks at hand – on paying the rent or the mortgage and keeping food on the table – on stretching our resources so they go further and on finding some enjoyment in the simple pleasures. ‘A beer with mates’, kinship, friendship, gatherings and family outings – a picnic under the tree that spreads its benevolent branches to give us shade. Lazy days. Soaking it all up – the wind in our hair and the warmth of the sun on our skin, the soft grass, the sound of the birds. A time to play yet equally, the recognition of our greatest need – to just be.
Out in Nature, in touch with the world in all its beauty. Noticing the ants crawl past. Watching the sun glint all golden through the leaves. Seeing how everything sparkles. Smelling the fresh earth and inhaling great gulps of pure air. Relaxing. Dropping our cares as we let the weight slip from our shoulders and the lines on our face soften, in Nature’s embrace. The sound of a brook or a stream; carries us off into dreams. Yet the moment’s reverie can’t last – linger too long and we forget our tasks. A gnawing reminder of the things we must do, somehow always manages to slip through.
However much abandon we find, we still like to keep track of time. Time keeps us on our toes – it has us engaged in what we’ve allocated to a particular time-slot in order to keep everything in line or managed. We take courses in it and keep diaries, marking the days as segments of activities, all neatly formulated along with our plans – containing us, holding us to our word and our chosen purpose. Leisure and meetings, all rolled into the same page of a busy day – successful only if we fulfill our obligations to our self and others, then we may rest, permission granted, guilt free, because our freedom has been won – hard earned – we’ve traded for it.
How could we ever consider it ours already? That we’re not only worthy of it, regardless of what we think we have to do to deserve it, but entitled to it, unconditionally, in order to serve a higher purpose – that of finding love in all undertakings. A freedom of expression that is not dependent on an income or an audience. A natural desire that bubbles up, that rises from deep within us and instinctively calls us to act – to follow our curiosity or to embark on a different path to the one we’ve chosen or to answer some calling within us that won’t be denied.
We’ve always wanted to do what? Take money out of the equation and allow ourselves the time and we would what? Win the lottery and we know what we’d do, or might let the thought flicker past occasionally and not give it much credence because we don’t think it is our reality, except we can buy tickets in the hope that on some level we might just believe it, therefore it is possible.
If we’re not in, we can’t win. If we don’t play the game of life and jump from square to square in the order that we’re told, our progress can’t be measured. If we don’t display our visible means of support we can’t be catalogued. If we refuse to fit in, how can we be accepted? If we want to claim our freedom without selling our soul, how do we make our self believe it is already ours?
If money grew on trees, perhaps we’d live life with ease – yet we can be sure there would be no leaves. In the Western World we pride ourselves on having civil liberties. Liberté, égalité, fraternité – treaties and agreements that govern conduct, and contain the highest of ideals. Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, free thinking, free will. Nothing more than our ability to follow the course that is surest for us – to be who we need to be, ever mindful of whether we are contributing to the wellbeing of the whole, no matter how little our gestures or significant, it is the thought that counts.
Our intent, our efforts – our desire to be the change we wish to see. Not by saying we believe in something but by living and breathing what feels right to us, because it feels good. We don’t feel the gnawing reminder or the lack or guilt or obligation, just contentment in all we choose to undertake. We’ve removed the separation.
We’ve built a bridge; we’ve become what we’re aiming for by taking the steps necessary in order to achieve it. We’ve listened to our heart. We’ve opened up to our inner world and forgotten about the demands of the external world – wrapped up in our own joy for a change, not selfish but self-aware and able to tap in to our own inspiration. Not constantly driven to distraction, but taking gentle actions – letting the inspiration come and taking small steps to awaken us to new possibilities. The ones that open doors. The chinks, the spaces, the pauses that create a gap by which the new may enter. The silence between the words. The emptiness between our thoughts. Our moments of rest from doing so we can get on with the business of being.
Being present in the moment. Centred, strong. The gentle breeze ruffling our leaves – our branches reaching out, spreading towards new opportunities, expanding, growing, unfurling. Our trunk solid, holding us upright, layer upon layer of wisdom gained in our lifetime. And within, at our heart, the core of our being a channel as we draw all of the energy and goodness from our leaves down into the centre of our being and let it flow into the earth – our roots anchoring us to the Earth, grounding us, providing all the stability we need.
An ill-wind may blow and we stand, unshaken. Drawing the nutrients from the earth back through our core to the tips of our branches and our leaves – receiving the light of the sun, the moon and the stars, transformed into energy as it passes through us, standing upright as our trunk – our spine – mirrors the axis of the Earth.
Energy from the Heavens and the residual energy absorbed by the Earth. An exchange as we are the receiver and transformer – the bridge between the two realms, the gateway, the Child between Father Sky and Mother Earth – the potential that can only continue to grow and reach maturity and endure, far beyond what we like to mark as earthly years.
Reaching beyond – outside of the limits of time and space. The three cosmic zones: the above and the below, overlapping as the vesica piscis – the present and our own unlimited potential, the realms that lie within our heart, the point of convergence of truth, our essence – our home.