In the Hollow Oak

So, I wrote once before about sitting actually inside an oak tree. the opening is only just big enough for me to squeeze through, but once inside I can sit upright and even stretch my legs out.

I'd wanted to return for a while and when I did, and got inside, wow, the silence! The wood shielded me for every sound. And it was dark, too of course. But then, either the world changed or my senses did because I could hear... and was it a breeze rattling the drying leaves or all the bugs inside resuming their gnawing? Or had they been gnawing all along and my ears had suddenly become more sensitive?

I sat listening to the rattling or gnawing until something dropped on my head. I screamed and scooted toward the opening. I was trying to calm myself - just cobwebs... but something flew out. A moth? I turned and saw something in the roof of the hollow - dark wings... a butterfly? I felt slightly freaked out, so I shot through the hole, but I had my angles wrong and was struck for a few moments. I had to regain some calm to manoeuvre out.

The air! The sun! I was so relieved that I felt joyous. I started to take picture.

That's when I saw the peacock butterfly, whose wings, when closed, looked like what I had seen inside the tree. Were the butterflies roosting inside the tree?

I don't know. But something about transformation struck me.

Then, joyous, I wanted to climb and I launched myself up. There was a point where my body took over and did what my mind wouldn't and I was up and standing and looking out over the world.

Getting down is always harder, but I felt exhilarated by all of it.

And I felt, from the tree, the message - there is enough of darkness. The silence is good and the stillness is good, but sometimes it's right to climb, to seek upwards, to aspire, to reach for the light.