I crossed paths with a story keeper
Earlier this spring I crossed paths with a story keeper and shepherd of the trees. He beckoned to me with his limb outstretched magnanimously, sharing a tale of things that have been and potential futures yet unlived by the rooted or two legged beings of this land.
He spoke to me of the time when the two legged beings walked under his and his ancestor’s magnificent canopies (which stretched from horizon to horizon) and in that time his kind and our kind were friends. He told me how he and his kin would reach their arms high into the sky reverently, praying with open leaved palms to receive the sacred starlight gifted to them by the Creator and they would transmute that sunlight into food and they would gift it to the two legged, four legged and winged ones along with others who shared in the abundance of nourishment. In those times, the two legged beings recognized the gifts that rained down from the sky for the sacred blessing that they are and they collected the seeds reverently.
He spoke to me of the time when a different group of two legged beings arrived here and how they were cold and without eyes to recognize the sacred gifts that he and his kin shared. These two legged beings had no respect for the sacred agreements and harvested him without need, felling his family for profit and out of ignorance. He told me of the time when he was one of the last elders standing tall above the land watching the forest shrink around him, grinded into the gears of industry and statism to make way for flat fields soaked in poison filled with genetically enslaved plants that are not capable of communing with the wisdom and resilience of the elder rooted beings.
He told me of how sad he was to see the two legged beings he once called friends going down such a dark and destructive path and how he still holds hope for a day when humans will wake up from their generational amnesia to remember the sacred agreements their ancestors had with his kind. He told me how his kind offer their bodies back to the Earth to become the nurseries for the next generation of story keepers and shepherds of the trees to set down roots and he pointed his outstretched limb to the forest floor where acorns, hickory nuts, beech nuts, pawpaw seeds, tulip tree, white pine and walnuts lay dormant and full of potential.
His palm open, inviting me to come closer, he spoke softly and told me of a vision he had of a future when the once mighty food forests of this region are restored and his descendants would once again be able to use their God given gifts to transform starlight into food and rain it down as gifts to feed the human family.
He told me to tell all of my fellow two legged beings that we are capable of wonderful and amazing things when we walk a path of humility and see his kind as allies and kin. He told me that not only does a society grow great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit, but the children born into that society 7 generations from now will be able to access hidden and forgotten gifts that the human family has not possessed in several ages.
He told me “my time is up, the rest is up to you my friend.”
In many pre - Christian Western & non - Western traditions, seemingly inanimate objects have spirits, particularly Japanese Shinto, Native American / First American, Polynesian, Australian native, etc. Whether you consciously intended to or not, that was what I came away with. Kudos !
Thank you from this two-legged being who longs for renewed kinship among all beings.