The Tree of Life, Part 2: Ruminations
Tradition and culture
The borders of our habitat
Of habitual rituals
Enclosed fields that we graze
Somnolent and dull-eyed
Bereft of adventure and wonder
Unable to wander
And the soul so yearns
Walls, here, built to safeguard
Against the inconstancy of the wild
Mires and bogs and wild beasts
But when walls become the master
Safeguard turns to prison
And these walls also hide the light of the sun
And oceans, and mountains
Life unknown to us
True beauty
So, did Haellys’ mind ruminate in the silence one day when, as if from afar, a voice seemed to whisper ever so quietly.
Why do you cling so tightly to reason?
Let go your anchor, Child of Light
Let your wings carry you to foreign fields
Why do you fear the wild so?
Let the fires of life burn high, Child of Light
Fear is fickle, know your strength
Bring the fear to your light and watch it shrivel up
The voice was not such a one as to startle, but rather so faint Haellys was left wondering if he had imagined it. Nevertheless, the words did not leave him. Instead, they took root and, over time, grew until curiosity finally conquered caution and he made the decision to leave the known and the familiar.
“Madness waits beyond these walls,” they all told him, as he started making his preparations. But he knew that also truth, and beauty, and freedom, and love lay beyond those walls. Such stuff as stories and legends are made of, and so began his journey.
“Beware of He who hates,” She said, fear gleaming in her eyes.
There is an allure to the wild, to its darkness, perhaps it is a similar calling to that which so many of us have noted one feels when standing at the edge of a great height looking down. It seems to speak to us, like a whisper we just barely cannot hear, or is it many whispers? An entire conversation? A foreign language that seems somehow familiar, but that we nevertheless cannot comprehend. Is it music? Of a kind perhaps? Though it is a darkness that calls us, it is its illumination we seek — to know what it hides and then to discover what hidden parts of ourselves we may find in our meeting with this new land. There is an allure to the wild, but there is a terror as well. Just as we fear the fall as we stand there gazing out over the edge of a cliff. We know instinctively that no matter what this object of our fascination — darkness — holds, it must change everything irredeemably. Is it the introduction of some demonic behemoth? Is it love? Is it nothing? One might think that if we confront the great darkness of the world and discover nothing, nothing has changed, but everything has changed. Could we know that all of this, all of life, is framed in a great nothingness — that there was nothing more to this — and still be content to go on as before? Even the strongest amongst us relies on that darkness of the unknown to provide them with the things they cannot find in the light — meaning, joy, love. Knowledge can be a curse as easily as it is a blessing.
