The Tree

Once upon a time there was a Tree – a very beautiful, high Tree, where the birds could rest, and which gave a soothing shade in days of hot sunlight. It had grown up from a little seed, like all trees do, well, most of them at least. The strange, and incredible thing with this Tree, was that it was planted on a solid rock, and somehow it grew into it, developed deep roots, and spread out its branches. The roots went very deep indeed, and they multiplied and spread to different countries over the whole world.

There was no Tree in the whole world that this Tree could be compared with – it was somehow more perfect than all the others. It had the highest stem, the widest crown, the greenest leaves of all the Trees. But since it didn’t know this, it didn’t risk getting proud. It just received the water through the roots, and the sunbeams made the leaves do their wonderful process. The Tree grew and grew and grew.

One day a tiny little stick passed by the big Tree. “Oh, my”, it said, “what an amazing Tree! There is no other such Tree in the whole wide world. I recognize its color, its soft and beautifully shaped leaves, its mysteriously patterned stem. I see it is the work of a Master’s hand. I see it’s made by Him who was once crucified on me…” Then the stick continued its walk, joyful that its Master had indeed kept His promises.

The big Tree had also very big ears, and had heard the words of the little stick. It said to itself: “Wow, I didn’t know that, I must be one of a kind, a really remarkable Tree!!!” And the Tree stretched its branches a bit higher, and curled its roots by this new pleasant feeling. What news! It seemed like from that day on the Tree grew a bit faster, as if it was eager to show the whole world that it was indeed very special.

What wasn’t possible to see by exterior things, though, was the inner dialogue that had started within the Tree. One voice in it said: “I must grow more to the left to get perfectly even.” And the other voice said: “I must grow a little bit more to the right, then my shape will look just perfect from all angles.” Not knowing which voice to listen to, it started to strive in two directions at the same time. Its will was stronger than its ability to grow in this way though, so suddenly one day there was heard a crack in the upper middle part of the stem. It was just a little crack, hardly noticeable for the eye. But it did hurt, indeed!

Then the voices started arguing again: “That was your fault, you strived too much to the left!” “No, you went way too much to the right!” And the branches started hitting each other – the left branches fought hard against the right ones. Meanwhile the crack got deeper and deeper, and it finally seemed like the whole Tree would crack into two parts. And so it did, during one night with heavy rain and thunder, when the lightning struck the Tree. It was cut into two halves, separated from each other, that was now a sad fact. But the good news in the middle of the tragedy was that it was still alive, miraculously enough, but the two halves kept growing in different directions.

The right part of the stem still had its roots fixed in the rock, even if they had been quite a bit shakened by the crack. But the left part of the stem had gotten its roots cut off from the rock. It quickly developed new roots outside the rock and thus it could continue to grow. So, it might have lost its original roots, but when the Tree cracked, the heart was left in the left part of the stem. One would then maybe feel sorry for the right part, which had no heart, but it was quite happy, since it had gotten what it thought of as the better part – it had gotten the big brain, which it put to work night and day, in subtle intellectual thinking. This was of course not a question about the “physical” Tree heart and brain – without both parts having them neither of them would have survived. It was the spiritual heart and mind that was now split up. But that was of course bad enough.

The Tree was now in a pretty miserable state, compared to how it had used to be. The birds didn’t like to rest there as they did before, and it didn’t give such a good shade any longer. Only one side of each part, where most of the branches and leaves were, gave any shade. And since they now stood quite a bit away from each other, it was no longer like one tree, one could walk in between the parts. But that wasn’t a popular thing to do. Both the parts of the stem would attack those who dared to do so. They demanded that everyone must chose one part to support, and be willing to fight against the other part when necessary. To stay in the middle was no option.

The Tree was split, there was no doubt about that, the halves kept their bitter distance, but they didn’t like to be reminded of the wound, which still hurt. To make it feel a bit better, the halves both started to pretend that they were indeed the only True Tree. And this game of the mind went so far that one day they believed that this was in fact so. The left part said: “I have the heart, the immense love for the whole creation, and I have treasured the true original spirituality in all its depth, that’s why I am the only Tree that is now left.” The right part said: “I am the one who has the brain, so know that I am always right, I’ve kept and developed the right teachings, and you can even hear it by my name: I am truly the right Tree. And regarding love – it consists not in feelings but in the will to do the right thing, so I am the one who knows what love is.”

They started to proclaim their new insights with fervor, all around the world, wherever their roots made new suckers. The right part had indeed developed many teachings which the left part couldn’t agree with (they met at rare occasions to discuss these things). And the left part had split up even more than the right part, claiming that its branches must be independent, even if its heart still kept it together in spirit.

Time passed, even years went by, but there were no signs that the Tree would ever be united, healed, again. On the contrary, especially the right part treated the left part very brutally when right suckers stormed the parts of the earth where the left branches had spread out most, and tried to quench them from the roots. Many beautiful things belonging to the left branches were thus destroyed, but life remained in the branches, and they slowly recovered.

Quite awhile after these sad events, the almost total unity of the right part was suddenly threatened by one of its little branches, who said: “You are wrong in this and that, now repent, and change your erring ways!” The right part of the Tree had become very proud of its teachings as the years passed by, and couldn’t stand hearing such a remark! It thus declared that the little branch must be cut off! And so it was, one grey and rainy day. And off the little branch wandered, until it found an area with good soil, then it put down its stump, and see, the miracle happened again - it got roots, very large and strong ones. And it spread all over the world more quickly than the original left and right part had done.

One day the wind started blowing. It wasn’t an unusual thing of course, it happened every day. The wind had been with the Tree from its beginning until now. But this day the wind was somehow stronger, it had a fresh scent, and felt more powerful than ever. It was as if life itself was borrowing the shape of the wind to be able to do something special. The wind approached the right part of the Tree, as well as the left part. But they both got scared by the tremendous power they felt coming near, even if it slightly awakened memories of something awesome from the past, something that had happened one day when the Tree was very little. The Tree had indeed changed a lot since then, and unlike that time long ago, fear now took control of it. The left and right parts of the Tree felt that this amazingly strong wind could efficiently ruin what it had built up during so many long years. So both the right and left part made resistance to it with all their force, they felt its storm touching them only at the surface, but didn’t let it in. Deep and happy sighs of relief could be heard from them both when the wind finally gave up and continued its voyage.

The wind now approached the branch that had been cut off from the right part, and developed strong roots of its own. The wind humbly said: “Let me in, please, let me come into your centre, and I will make you into a beautifully blossoming part of the Tree.” But the little branch said: “I am already wonderful! I am not like for example the right part of the Tree. In fact, there’s much more of the original Tree in me than there in that old part of the tree, which is practically dead. See, I am fully alive, healthy and green, and already there are small buds coming out from me, I really don’t need you, wind.” And the wind continued even more sorrowfilled its tour. Would it ever be received again into an open heart somewhere? It silently thought about past times, wiping away a few tears. It had to wait patiently yet a little while.

The branch with its strong and quite selfsufficient roots had felt something weird when speaking with the wind. It was as if the mere sound of the wind (or perhaps its own words, it no longer knew which), had made the twigs loose, and now they suddenly started to fall off! “Look at me”, it said to itself, “I’m losing my twigs, they must be sick somehow…it’s probably good that they fall off so I can heal from that terrible disease they must have, and so that new twigs can grow out when they are gone, but why on earth does it have to hurt so much when they fall?”

The little twigs weren’t sick at all, they were indeed healthy. And the poor branch soon recovered from its loss. It was because the twigs were so tiny that they fell off when they heard the sound of that wind. They felt they wanted it with all their soul, at all costs, their great longing finally made them fall off the branch, they desperately wanted to follow the wind, to be filled by it. The wind, still at a distance, saw them being so tiny and now on their own, defenseless and without any force of their own. It gave the wind new hope, it sensed the spiritual thirst and hunger in the twigs, and it returned again with all its loving warmth and strength, and gently approached the little longing ones and filled them up with wonderful things. They felt more alive than ever, a new joy filled them, they were radiant, and somehow they brought to mind the splendour of the Tree in its youth.

Their little roots didn’t go very deep though, and soon they spread with the wind to new places. There they met parts of the right and left part of the Tree. These were at first suspicious, but when they saw the amazingly good fruits growing on the tiny twigs, they felt that something was missing in their own life. They sighed and wished they also could get some of this freshness again. And the strong wind had only waited for this, so it arrived again with a new spring time, which made some of the old parts of the Tree blossom abundantly again, like a young tree. This also happened to the right part with the independent and strong roots. 

Well, all now seemed to be pretty well - or almost so at least. But since the Tree was split up in so many parts it couldn’t stay upright in the wind. It couldn’t make a good use of it, the fruits were just tiny, even if good, and the wind couldn’t reach and transform all the parts of the Tree. Some had hidden behind rocks or buried themselves in mud in order to avoid the scary and unpredictable change. It was unfortunately a pretty successful attempt.

The little stick, which had once been part of the Cross, had kept walking around the world, and seen what had happened to the Tree. It felt sad when seeing many things, but rejoiced in other things. One night it dreamt that all the shattered parts of the Tree gathered again, it was united, and all the old wounds were healed. And it was more beautiful than ever. The old beauty wasn’t just restored, but there was something new to it. The Tree had something new and fresh to offer the world, things it had learned in pain when it was split up. “Oh”, said the stick a bit disappointed when it woke up…”it was just a dream…but how I wish it would become real…!”

ã Charlotte Thérèse, 2004