Healing Gardens

I will continue to work on this.

Creation Story

In the beginning there was a tree. This tree was like none that you and I have ever seen. It was a magnificent tree, with branches the stretched up and out and over the land, and long strong roots that extended deep down into the earth, forever binding the tree to the land. The bark of this tree was made of all the knowledge and wisdom of the earth. Coarse and weathered its impenetrable skin was thick enough to protect all the secrets locked within. Secrets of creation and secrets of destruction, of life and death wrapped up, protected from the harsh wind, sun and cold that would try to steal the secrets away.

The leaves of this tree were flat, each a little universe, bright little secrets spinning and quivering in the breezes that swept over them. All of these leaves together sweeping in the breeze lighted the sky, tickling the heavens with color. These colors were not those that we know, they were not the many shades of green that we recognize on the trees around us. No, these colors had dimensions, angles, shades, looking into a single leaf you could see an infinite number of tones reflecting back. Every color imaginable was represented all mixing together creating not the brown that we see when our paints run together on the pallet, but a beautiful spectrum that moves flickering in the light, as if alive itself.

The wind from the beginning was an enemy of the tree. Envious of the secrets hidden away in the core of the tree, the wind would howl across the earth ripping and biting, fruitlessly trying to carry the secrets away for the tree. The fierce wind would scour over the earth tearing and whirling and lifting every grain of sand from the beaches, every drop of water from the sea and in its fury whip every stinging grain, each salty gasping drop against the hardened bark. The branches of the tree would thrash and twist and move creaking and calling out to the wind but they would never crack or break and the roots would never be moved. No matter how hard the wind would tear through the branches the leaves still held. Not a leaf would let the wind sweep them away, they loved thier mother tree and cried to feel the strain on thier grasp of her, they would never let go. 

Until one night, as the moon was passing over head. The wind was angry. It had just learned, from the water that had washed over the tree, a secret. A secret that the tree had kept so well for so long, hidden in the depths of its flesh. A very powerful secret, one that the wind wanted more than any other.

At first the wind was nice, caressing the tree, moving the breeze gently through every branch and leaf trying to seduce the tree into giving away all of the secrets. But the tree would not give, its bark remained as rough and impenetrable as ever before and it seems to bring its branches in a little closer as if to hug each leaf. The impatient wind soon grew impatient and began to grow stronger and stronger and faster and faster until all of the grains of sand from the shore and every drop of water in the sea were swept up into the air, each speck hurling in a vortex through space.

The small delicate leaves flashed and shimmered with every gust holding on to their mother with the might of all the ages. Yet, it was not enough. One leaf from the highest branch lost its hold on the tree and floated down its soft, flat surface spiraling through the air. The moment this leaf hit the earth it curled up. The still leaf lay curled and alone on the ground beneath its mother. With each moon that passed through the sky a trace of light could be seen flickering slightly on the dying surface of the leaf growing brighter and more dazzling until it shone like that moon with an intensity of radiance and grace.

On the 12^th morning the light suddenly went out. The leaf was dry and brown, the life all gone from it. Then as the sun was setting over the branches of the mother tree there is a movement, a twitter, almost as if a gentle breeze was stirring that lonely leaf, longing to carry it away from its mother, away from the earth, away over the sea. And yet there was not a whisper of breeze; the air was as still as a drop of dew hanging patiently on a blade of grass.

Slowly the leaf began to unravel. Timidly at first and then in a torrent creation came pouring out on to the soft earth.