A coffee break with Aulus

Another day, another oak. Well, a familiar oak. Aulus, the Guardian Oak. This tre is so comfortable and safe to sit in. I could have stayed for hours.

Below me, I heard the leaves rustle. I looked down. A robin looked back up. They were not afraid and carried on foraging, climbing part way up the gently sloping trunk.

This time, I was thinking about the "emergent third". Here's what I was thinking: Bobbit is not more important than any other robin. My duties to all robins, birds, beasts and beings are the same. Ahimsa. Do no harm. However, given the time with Bobbit, there is a something else. Think of it as a shared speech bubble between us... this is out entangling. How we are part of each other's memories. We have created pathways in each other's neurons. In our interaction there has been acknowledgement, recognition, curiosity, questions asked and responses given, behavioural adjustments, emotions experienced, all of which are emergent... dependent upon the interaction, the connection, the entanglement.

Now, in my new ethics, these emergent thirds of entangled interbeing arise from all connections, with greater or lesser complexity... they are ongoing processes of co-becoming that are additional to the two beings who interact.

And they, these emergent thirds, have an intrinsic value of their own. They are not no-things, they are significant somethings, made not of matter but of moments. A non-matter than matters.

So, as well as caring about Bobbit in the same way I care about any robin, I also have a responsibility to the emergent third. This something else.

I think this is what the horse chestnut was getting at.

Aulus said, "This is an emergent third."

"This," he said, "signifies my relationship with the world."

I was confused too. And more confused when Aulus sought o enlighten me on how decisions are made in community. Essentially, all function as one and decisions are emergent, dependent on everything else.

Even more confused when Aulus stated that trees don't have to make decisions that acknowledge future generations because they are the future. And the past and the present. I guess the Goddess Oak made this point too.

Anyway, I was happy enough to enjoy the present. A beautiful day. A glorious tree.