In seamless tide of thoughts woven through the centuries.  With wisdom and understanding sometimes the stories that were told had the most benefit in understanding and through the magic of stories, they were passed on by generations of Story Tellers down through the ages.  The stories kept people sane on cold winter nights when the temperatures plummeted and wind snipped through corners and under window sills like sleek hungry dogs.  Over the last couple of days being home with the kids, the fire blazing and the temperature outside as sharp as a tack.  Spirit Whispers quietly and stories are told and here is another one....

The journey of a Tree:

A massive tree grew beside a small musical stream, it's waters busy and sparkling, flooded at times by the weather, reduced to a trickle in the warmth of summer days.  Continually flowing with the passage of time.   As the months changed and fall came, the massive tree produced it's seeds and it's leaves turned orange, red and amber in the twilight of the Autumn.    One by one the seeds of the tree, round brown nuts, plopped from the branches and fell to the ground, nuts scattered the ground around the roots of the trees and  small hungry animals seized them and scurried away with them like prized possessions won from a side show fair.

One nut fell further than the others and was captured by the bubbling waters of the stream, "come with me, come with me" giggled the stream and the brown nut danced away down stream cradled in the arms of the dancing water.  As the nut was carried along, it wondered where it would end up, what adventures lay before it  as it was relentlessly carried by the stream.   The stream broadened and became a river, the nut helplessly continued on it's way now miles away from it's birth.    A small boy was fishing by the side of the river and reached out with his net and captured the nut, he looked at it closely and smoothed its hard brown shell.  "Hello there, where have you travelled?' he asked the nut, smoothed it again and popped it in his pocket.  Whistling he picked up his fishing rod and tackle and climbed the side of the bank and continued homeward.

The nut warmed in the pocket of the boy and again wondered which direction this new turn of events would take.  The boys step quickened as he drew closer to home, the thoughts of warm biscuits for his stomach captured by the smell of baking on the wind reeled him in like a fish on the line.  He felt in his pocket before he walked up the porch and momentarily stopped as he felt the nut.  He pulled the nut from his pocket, dimmer now as having dried on the way, not so brown or so interesting, and he threw the nut into the garden and darted inside.

The nut landed on moist earth, dark and loamy.  It sighed, finally, it had reached a destination.   As time passed and the energy grew inside of the nut, it put down a small white root into the soil, and the brown shell cracked as a new beginning of light green growth searched upwards towards the light above.  As years passed, the new green tendrils of the small tree strengthened, hardened and it reached ever further upwards.   Over the time, it was nibbled on, pulled, rained on, shone on, and pulled at by the wind.   Bark hardened on the small tree and it sent it's roots further and further into the ground securing it's self to the land.  The boy twined ribbons on the tree, included it in his games and his imagination. Animals came to the tree, rested and nested in its roots, it's canopy a shelter, it's branches safety.

The tree in it's purpose grew stronger and stronger.   Taller and taller and so the wisdom of the tree grew, as it watched the seasons change, the boy grow and climb the branches, tree huts and hideouts, the animals who came and went and the life cycles of the world.  The boy grown as a man, came and rested on the tree, he smiled as he smoothed initials carved in the bark, he little remembered it was he who so long ago threw a small brown nut into the garden.   The man was aging, his life passing, memories of children playing in the yard, his own growing to their potential, he leaned into the tree as the memories flowed.  The tree in it's wisdom listened quietly to the man and his memories. The years passed and the man died, the children buried the man beside his beloved tree.   The tree continued to watch over the children of the man for years to come, more tree huts, hideouts, initials and memories made and the tree in it's purpose grew...

Sometimes life takes us on a journey that we feel is beyond our control, that we long to put down roots and remain where we want to be.  However, like the tree, in experiencing more of life by an event beyond it's control, it gained more value to its life.   Sometimes taking the time also to stop and stand still and truly see what is happening in your life has value too.   The tree had a purpose, it knew what it was.   Sometimes our purpose is to just stand tall in ourselves and look again for the understanding and value of ourselves in our journey.   All of our experiences here have value, all of it has learning.  Never for a moment think that there is not value in your life, like the tree it can be small happenings but the memories will linger and create a story of a lifetime.