In the back of my mind, always, is the awareness that the days are getting shorter. This is not a good thought.
A tree said to me today, not a tree, this tree, this Teacher Being...
Yes, this is the Ancient Oak in the copse.
Anyway, he said, "Of course, you don't have as much time as we have."
I had been complaining about how I have all these ideas and sparkling thoughts and they feel as if they're connected, but assimilated rather than in some kind of logical chain, and they go nowhere. Like a whole forest of mycelium without any trees.
The Teacher Being said, "You must find the trees and give them what they need, which is not necessarily what they want."
Me: Don't trees know what they what?
TB: Where there is absence, how can anyone know what should be there?
Me: But I want to belong!
TB: You do belong here. I'd be happy for your bones to fall at my base and return to the earth.
Me: I'd like to belong while I am alive.
TB: Don't you feel as if you belong?
Me: Yes... but the poplars are dying and the world's all wrong!
TB: First, all things die. Second, you cannot belong in a world that does not exist. Only in the world that does. You belong AND everything is wrong. [Stay with the trouble? Like Donna Haraway? - Ed.] [I think so. - Crone.]
There was more, which I wrote down, but I can't recall it now.
A bee flew in and out of a tiny space between my foot and one of the oak's roots. She was feeding her brood. Birds called warnings and others sang. A loud crow flew over. A buzzard circled over me, looking down. Maybe I said that yesterday.An old field maple creaked, the fallen bough of an ash, still attached to the stem, groaned. Insects buzzed and whizzed. Swifts screamed high high up.
And the world turned. Cows, pigs, sheep, chickens, ducks died at slaughterhouses. Pollutants flooded into the rivers, lakes and oceans. Greenhouse gases accumulated. Politicians considered how much to invest in nuclear missiles and advertising campaigns. People shopped. An elephant child watched his mother's tusks get sawn off as she lay dead. A tiger's penis was bought for a small fortune. A pangolin flinched in a cage. The billionaires all got richer.
Good storytelling. Very good. "You belong AND everything is wrong." [... that feels helpful, maybe. Haraway -- you've written about her before methinks. BTW I like the asides conversation bw. Ed. & Crone.]
Majestic photos of the Oak, Teacher Being. BTW - I like your use of dialogue with the Oak.