THE LEGEND OF THE TALKING TREE – project “52”
It was a simple tree, ordinary looking tree.
No botanist would stop and think an invisible dragon guarded it.
The locals called the dragon Simorg and they would ask him for permission before cutting down a tree, as they feared they might cut the Tree of Life by accident.
The fruits it bore were full of wisdom.
The Elder of the village would come to ask the Tree of Life and its dragon to share some fruit and seed for well-needed knowledge, or to find answers of hidden secrets.
Every now and then the Elder came to sit down next to the tree, cradled between its knotty wooden fingers of tree roots that were clutching the earth deep down.
The juices of the roots were bringing up the tales and rumours from the world below.
The tree was buzzing with the stories from the Kingdom below and the wise man can tell that he can hear the tree talking.
One day the old man took along a strange young man, a botanist, who was visiting the village looking for the giant seedpods of the blackbean chestnut.
The tree was generous and dropped on the ground quite a few seedpods for them to pick.
The elder cautioned the eager young man to take his time and listen and thank the tree.
“The nature is talking to you. Harvest its wisdom,” explained the old man.
Then he sat down amongst the wooden fingers of the tree roots and let the young botanist wonder around the tree, collect and draw sketches of seedpods, branches, leaves and acorns.
When at late morning a squeezing feeling of hunger started to twist their stomachs, the elder offer him a modest snack with tinned sardines, dried olives, red onion and brown bread.
It all had so different taste and one would wonder if the fresh air, the hunger pangs or something about the place and the tree they were next to made the simple humble food taste so, so nice…
As they were sitting on the ground and enjoying the food, something whooshed and airstream twisted around them.
The young man jumped on his feet looking all around, trying to catch the invisible.
The old man chuckled in his white beard.
He knew the dragon was in good mood and having little amusement with the unenlightened botanist.
Then he looked up between the tree branches and whispered, “I know, Simorg. We have some rectifying work ahead of us”.
Till we sit under the wise tree again,
Sophia
© 2015 copyright | an ode to… | sophia terra~ziva | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
