A gift from the sentient forest

So, I made this video of my latest visit to Kairos, but while there, I also had a conversation.

K: As you see, I am all about supporting life. All of me is used in various ways by others at some point in time.

Me: Could you say the same of someone who, say, breeds broiler chickens?

K: No.

Me: What's the difference?

K: If that's not obvious...

Me: It is. Sorry.

K: If I think of the world, I think of this as the centre. But only because I am here, not because I or this is the most important. It's a matter of perspective.

Me: OK...

K: I know about carbon dioxide breathed out by Napoleon and atoms exchanged with Shakespeare. All those world-wide, eon-long cycles and exchanges that make here and now somewhat irrelevant. But, you see, I am here now and that's how I live.

Me: I think I get what you're getting at.

K: Being the centre of one's world is not about importance, it's about perspective. That's all.

Me: OK.

K: I mean, those moral ideas about expanding circles? Me, my family, my wood, my region, my country... or my species, my type of being, living things... all that's a confusion with perspective.

Me: So....?

K: Nothing's really more or less important.

Me: And death?

K: It's not about dying, it's about being absorbed.

Me: You don't want to die?

K: I don't not want to die.

Me: You protect yourself, though. Bark and tannins and stuff? Compete for light? For water and minerals?

K: I am living and this is how I live and how others live and die with and from me. Then I will be dying and that will be how I die and how others live and die with and from me. Then I will be dead and that will be how others live and die from me.

Me: And it makes no difference to you?

K: It makes all the difference in the world to me. And all my differences are among the differences that make a difference for others.

Me: I'm kind of lost.

K: You want differences to be either/or when they are both more than and less than that.

Me: More lost.

K: Look up.

Me: Sky.

K: And?

Me: Leaves??

K: Look with your whole being.

Me: It's like looking down into water.

K: The well. And at the bottom you find the treasure you didn't know you needed.