The Eagle flew past the Tree…
He only knew it as the tree that wanted to leave the mountain ridge...
but the Tree knew it should always hold on.

T

he Tree had been clinging to a rock cliff for a long time, until one day a mountain climber threw a rope around one of its trunks to pull his overweight body up to the next ridge. The climber was nearly at the top when the whole trunk suddenly started to slip towards him. Certain that the trunk was going to break off completely and take him with it down the mountain, within a second he grabbed the ridge as he saw his rope on the trunk disappear in the mist of the abyss below.

The man was grateful for still being alive and when he stood on still-shaking legs, he saw a kind of tree he had never seen before. At precisely that moment, and faster than you could say, "Grab the ledge!" he was enlightened. Here follows what he saw and the there-after:

The man looked at the tree.  It had a feature scar...a piece of deadwood and well-balanced branch placement in a style of cascading over-and-down the mountain, and in it he saw age and the presence of tranquility.

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The frontmost, primary trunk curved up into the sky and came down again, as if towards the viewer and stopped just above another branch below, also hanging like a wave down the mountain ridge, but still….and still grasping with its roots deep into the rock.

There was a branch at the back of his view, behind the main trunk, which, oddly enough, caused a feeling in his heart that this tree had dimension, and a sense of life backing his own life. It was cold and the mist was flowing through the needle-like foliage, and he had an overwhelming feeling that he was part of the tree, and the tree part of him, and they were together a part of the mountain, but they didn’t belong there.

The man suddenly realized that the people below wouldn’t believe what he had seen and felt, and his spirit sank when when he imagined how his tale of enlightenment would rush out of his heart and fall on their disbelieving ears. An enormous sigh left his body and he walked to the base of the tree. He sat down with his head on his knees and he cried….

The night was cold and the over-weight man was hungry and sad on top of his hunger, and the whole night he was scratching his head, because there was something prickly nearby, but it was too dark for even an owl to see.

NEXT: The night passed...

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