Since I'm in the office any time between 5 and 5:30 in the morning, I tend to take a lunch break at about 11.
I wander downstairs for a change of scenery and have a smoke next to the wastebin beneath a poor, tortured, caged Pin Oak.
(No, I don't have a problem smoking a cigarette near the tree. It's only humans it seems who have dramatic hissy fits at the smell of tobacco)
When I've finished smoking I pick up the litter of dogends, plastic earbuds, chewing gum and crisp wrappers which are strewn on the earth beneath the tree. Yes, just half a metre from a wastebin, people still prefer to throw their refuse on the ground.So, I pick it up for them.
This morning as I walked toward the Pin Oak, I opened my bag to get my cigarettes, and a swirl of wind blew a perfectly Autumn-toasted Pin Oak leaf into my handbag. Just one airborne leaf, in the air, into my small shoulder bag. Thank you.
I have it on my computer monitor now.
Lovely. One should always remain open to gifts from the gods ... or thank-yous from the trees.
ReplyDeleteI live in a place where I used to walk by a small young tree everyday. It was one of those urban trees planted by the city that no one will care for, because, you know, it's the city's. In summer I brought it water; in fall I fetched its shed leaves to lie around it. In late winter I gave it tree spikes.
One spring we had a fierce windstorm, with the result that the tree was damaged. I was on my way home, walking past it after giving it salute, when a large branch fell from it, practically at my feet. Brought it home, after profusely thanking the tree, and crafted it into my staff, one of three wands.
Two days later, a drunk crashed into the tree, and broke it off about two feet from the ground.
And "they" say plant life isn't sentient.
This inability to know the sentience of other life is a major flaw in our culture's thinking, Vienne.
ReplyDeleteWell, when I say our culture I mean the culture. The Wetiko culture, which really isn't mine at all.
It's astonishing how much proof of awareness is presented to us if we just step outside the dominant paradigm for even a momemt.
Love,
Terri in Joburg