We can be part of something bigger.
We are like leaves on a tree. To a human looking at leaves on a tree, it seems quite natural that in the autumn the leaves turn color and fall to the ground. People come from hundreds of miles away to places like Vermont just to see this beautiful sight. This beauty of autumn is death to the individual leaves.
Leafdom is good, but in a way treedom is better.
When I die someday, I'll be like a leaf on a tree. If I'm focused on the tree, and feel as part of the tree instead of as an individual leaf, I won't have to regret dying. Actually I'll be just shaking like a leaf, more likely, but I'm just saying that individual dying doesn't have to be so bad a thing if we understood the situation better. After shaking in fear for a while, I'll eventually die and be still, which in a way is better than shaking anyway, and death takes me there to stillness even if I fail to do it otherwise. Good things happen even if I fail as an individual.
So I thought, for a few years, but today I had an additional thought: Today it finally occurred to me to ponder what is a tree leaf thinking about all this?
One leaf, named Henry, had an old friend, Arnold, who was changing color and getting ready to fall, which is to die. Henry was sad about it and not really agreeing with the idea that Arnold would ever die. When the day finally came, Arnold dropped away. With a great cry of anguish, Henry yelled, "Hold on Arnold! I'm coming!" And with a great effort, Henry detached himself from his stem-base and launched himself into the air, and went flying after Arnold. Arnold wasn't paying much attention to Henry. Arnold was just going about his business, which at the moment was to drift slowly to the ground.
Arnold came to rest on the ground. Henry, by contortions and contractions, came down as fast as he could, and landed right next to Arnold, and immediately began performing leaf-to-leaf resucitation on Arnold. After a little while of this, Arnold woke up, or was revived, and looked up at Henry, a little crossly, and said, "What are you doing?" Henry, breathless, shouted, "I've saved you! You're alive!" But Arnold, annoyed, said, "What for? What now? Look at us! Look up at the tree! What shall we do now?"
Henry gazed upward, at the tree branches far above, from whence they came. No way would they ever get back up there, unless a tornado happened along and they were both extremely lucky. He looked around but the weather was nice and it didn't look like any tornado would be along for a long time.
Arnold was too wise to stay annoyed for long. He explained: "Henry! It's natural for me to come to the ground at this time. It's what I was meant to do! The forest needs me to fertilize the next generation of trees. The very tree we came from" -- here he gazed upward reverently -- "has to shed leaves as part of its seasonal cycle. If we all stuck to it forever, the tree would suffocate and die. Moreover" -- and here he got a very thoughtful look -- "if we could stay green forever and autumn never came, we and everybody around us would get so bored that we'd be better off dead. Let the new generations grow! Let the world exhale and inhale, expire and inspire! Love the new baby leaves. That's what life is about. The new baby leaves are the spirit of the world -- they have boundless joy. I serve them by settling into the earth this way. If I insisted on staying up there on the tree, I'd only be impeding the inspiration and joy that is to come."
Arnold peered closely at Henry, who was at least quiet now, though still grieving. Arnold said, "You can grieve for me the individual leaf; that's okay, though not ultimately necessary. But now that you're down here with me, savor the ground! Love the environment now, and the role we have now in it! This is what we are meant for now, just as surely as in the earlier time we were meant to be green."
by jrl, 2012/January/17th, 7pm
No comments:
Post a Comment