The tree who could not pick up and leave

A fable that came to me while I was meditating ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The tree who could not pick up and leave

There was once a tree whose roots grew strong down into the earth. The tree had feelings and you may be quite surprised to know that they weren’t the peaceful feelings you would probably expect for a tree to have. 

No, this tree was sick with rage. It sputtered and thrashed in a windstorm. 

“I want to leave! I want to pick up and run. I hate where I’m planted and my roots just keep growing deeper. I want no part of it, let me go!!!” The tree howled as the wind teased its leaves. 

“You can’t go anywhere,” cried the wind! “That’s the whole gig of being a tree, stupid! You’re stuck! Only I can move, and I can go EVERYWHERE.”

And the wind derived satisfaction from making the tree jealous. 

As long as the tree was grouchy, the wind felt FABULOUS about herself and she would whoosh by, admiring herself in the ripples of the pond. 

One day, the tree, having come to her natural season, over which she had no control, dropped a ripe fruit, tasty and filled with seeds. 

The tree didn’t stop there. She dropped lots more fruit. She was indifferent to this. It was more of the same. Happened in some form every year and every year her roots went deeper and she got more bored and grouchy. 

Birds began to gather at her feet and to hop around her roots, which last year and for many years prior had caused her irritability and despair. But this season the birds struck her as interesting. 

Like the wind they could go everywhere as she could not, but unlike the wind, the birds were polite and chatty, complimenting her fruit and saying it was “particularly nice this year.”

Tree could hardly take credit. 

“Well. I’m glad you like it. I might as well make nice fruit while I’m here,” she groaned. The wind, seeing that Tree was halfway toward a bad mood, seized the opportunity to stir her leaves and disgruntle her further. 

One bird, with a hopeful blue streak across her back, stayed awhile and struck up a conversation that intrigued the tree. 

“You know, Tree. There is a way you can travel and see the world and not be so bored and grouchy.” The tree was dubious, but again, she couldn’t leave, remember?!, so she had to listen to the bird’s song. 

The bird continued, chirping and noshing on the sour fruit up in the tree’s branches, the fruits not yet fallen. From up there the bird could chirp right into the tree’s ear. 

“I’m going to eat many hundreds of your fruits this season and several hundred of your fruits’ seeds will come out in my poop.”

The tree was again depressed. She couldn’t believe she had to listen to this bird talk about her GI issues. 

“No, no, it’s not an issue,” chirped the bird! “It’s a way to see the world!!

I will poop your seeds out all over the coastline and somewhat inland too. Very far into towns and valleys you could never see on your own.

The poop will dry and become way less gross and the beautiful seeds will root! Your seeds will see every place you’ve never been!!”

The tree had never thought about this. It brought a small smile to her sap-filled core and the wind, not sure what to say, stood still. 

But again the tree became despairing. “Oh, so great, my seeds get to have all the fun. I’m still stuck here. I hate being a tree and I hate that I hate being a tree. I’m probably the only tree who has it so good living near a pond and still hates it. I’m ashamed to hate being a tree.”

So Tree not only had a bad feeling, but had a bad feeling about having a bad feeling. It was all so mortifying. 

“Oh, God,” thrashed the tree in the laughing wind, “Some human just come and make me into toothpicks already.”

“No,” the bird assured her. “I talk to tons of trees. They’re all grouchy about something.” 

At this the tree and the wind stood very still. This bird really knew a lot of things! The wind, for all her flying around, really had no wisdom to show for it. What a shallow bitch, thought the tree. The wind, for her part, judged the tree, whom she felt had terrible, reactive energy. Probably a Gemini, thought the wind, inscrutably. 

“Anyway,” said the bird, sensing a lot of tension and eager to deliver her moral and be on her way (she was diligent about protecting her bright blue energy) — “Point is, your seeds will spread everywhere this season because you have come of age. And your seeds will send back messages to you about what they’ve seen. 

As their roots grow, they will send stories through the fungal network in the soil, through the microbes in the air, and through the wiser of us birds, who adapt our tune as we travel, and you will see everything as if you had lived the life of a thousand trees.”

The grouchy tree suddenly became excited at the possibility of all this newness. 

The bird left and was like, “Ugh, never coming back there!”

But her message had landed on ready ears. As the seasons passed, the tree changed. A LOT! 

The tree began to hear from the seedlings! All over the coast and somewhat inland! They told insane stories! They were funny, they were sad. Every kind of story. They spied on humans and made fun of them. They watched guileless birds perform mating rituals that sometimes didn’t work and looked super ridiculous. Or totally did work and became pornographic. The seedlings grew and sent back stories of hunters, narrow escapes, valor and courage. Every kind of story and the tree, now utterly immersed in all these tales, was never again bored or resentful! 

And the wind, seeing the change in the tree and fearing irrelevance in the shift, decided to make herself useful. She, along with the birds pooping out the seeds, would carry the decaying fruit on her blasts and breezes and would scatter it everywhere: Helping to spread the seeds, who would send back their stories!

And THAT, you now know, is how trees came to be peaceful, fulfilled, confident, and content, instead of resentful, petty, reactive, self-loathing, and grouchy at being unable to run away from themselves. 

THE END.