The Musings of My Red Oak Tree

[Nykti]

Hey, uh, new member here. I really have very little to say, so I
figured I'd post my short story (published in the Great Tales of the
Flatlands Anthology, to be printed around august of 2011 or so). The
story itself is very...it's very worthy of being on a Wiccan forum.
I'll simply say that. I'm in Wichita as well; i heard about this place
on Witchvox. So....yeah. I'm horrible at introductions.


The Musings of My Red Oak Tree

I, as a very old red oak, have seen many a human passing through the
collection of flowers and trees in one of the earth’s sanctuaries,
often referred to as a forest or wood. In this isolated place, the
quiet air is only disturbed by the gossip of birds or the sighing of
the wind. Imperfections are disguised miracles; a fallen tree, a patch
of weeds. Both, although unsightly, have an individual purpose that
serves a unified whole: survival.

It is a simple concept, yet humans seldom contemplate it in their
daily lives. Because although stability in your world is always
questionable, the idea of feeding yourselves or protecting yourselves
from the winter or the summer is something you do not often have to
do. But us, the trees, some of the most simple minded organisms in the
world, have to work through summer, winter and seasons in between to
stay on the right side of the line that defines us from the soil we
grow from.

For it is, indeed, an odd concept: life and death. That one is
considered ‘dead’ when the body has stopped supporting life. This is
the definition, even though the true meaning is so much different.
Because even when “dead”, the body supports life. For truly, in human
eyes, one is considered dead when the familiar soul has departed.
Seeds and small animals that the eye cannot see all live in this body,
but humans do not allow the body, soon to become soil to grow on, to
decompose into grains of life.

Perhaps this is why forests are renowned places of balance. Things
take, and then return. There are no limits on whom or what touches the
dead; the carcass welcomes life to be sustained from it. It is this
cycle, this welcoming of life and parting of the dead that keeps this
revered place flowing.

I do not wish it to be claimed holy, for it is not. It is a place of
relief, not of awe. A place of inspiration, not of dedication. A place
of safety, not of worship. Indeed, a place of inner peace.

This is, perhaps, the reason forests are such sanctuaries. There is
no one, no thing, to please. The jays may babble in the trees, the
cicadas may hum and the toads may croak, but there are no customs or
rules to follow here. There is no public to impress, to please or to
offend. The bystanders here are the whispering leaves and the knocking
wrynecks, neither of which will gossip among themselves.

And yet, in this forest, you may be lonely, but never alone. For
although you may have no companions, there is always an owl within my
hollows, a raccoon behind my branches. Something there, waiting until
the crunch of your boots has receded into the quiet, and the forest is
in balance again.

Now you, dear reader, who I guess to be reading this off of paper
made from us very trees, understand what the plants contemplate and
share. What we communicate through our roots, what travels through the
ground: philosophy, as a form of not only entertainment, but also of
completing the inner desire to better understand the rules, not the
scientific facts, of life.

Now that you know a bit more of our thoughts, our feelings, our
beliefs and observations, you can relate better to our pain, to our
triumphs and to our confidence in blossoming. I, as an old red oak,
have seen many transformations, not just of the plants but also of the
animals, of the world itself, of how the creek that runs by me slowly
evolves in its course, of how the leaves glow in fiery glory before
the moment they die, of how the flowers at my base change their colors
each spring between yellow and red. And still I can look back at the
progress the forest around me has made, the progress I have made. The
miracle that I, of a thousand seeds, took root in the right spot and
managed to survive in this harsh environment, an environment that
gives peace and inspiration, but at the same moment longs to consume
me.

It is this fact that keeps us, the plants, from being overrun by the
animals. The fact that the bitter cold, the boiling heat, the strong
current of water all seem to have their focus unto you, the animals.
That they each seek you out individually, but are truly affecting the
world around you as a whole. And finally, out of desperation, the weak
that would otherwise waste the sources of life are weeded out, and the
stronger may continue and go on to protect their much stronger young,
their new generation, their own, whole, self. And it is this pruning
of numbers that keeps the ratio of us balanced.

But humans are exceptions to these rules.

And, indeed, it is the humans that pose an even bigger threat than
the forest itself. For we stand against the wind, against the snow and
against ice, against the flooding water and stand up to the dashing
lightning, bear the chewing of animals upon our bark or on our leaves,
and sprout up and against the unsafe land, the sky. We are pushing
away death, though it will never disappear. We slowly struggle to
shove our strength against the forces of nature. And then we hear the
crack of metal on wood, feel the vibrations of an axe planting itself
into our bark. And we know we cannot grow against this force, we
cannot hope to overcome it.

You humans; how you very seldom think of surviving, yet you tear
down those who are working the hardest to maintain possession of their
lives. How many a year it takes for a great sequoia to reach its full
majestic size, but less than a week for it to fall and join the earth
from which it sprouted. How you come to tear and destroy, armed with
weapons of tearing and shredding, whereas we stand and can do nothing
but bear the shearing heat of your blades and wait to become a table
upon which you feast, or a cardboard box destined to rot in a landfill
from which my soil shall never sustain life, shall never sit at the
base of a tree like me.

But I shall perhaps talk more of this later, for the story has not yet
even begun. No, this tale, one that took a good hundred years to
unfold, a week to record, ten minutes to tell and a day to forget has
only just been introduced into your mind.

It was in the dawning moments of spring, with the mists of early
hours twirling with clear, fresh air. I could feel my numb branches
and twigs warming back to life, anxious to reveal bright green buds
after so long standing dark and menacing over a bleached landscape.
Everything was so still, so quiet, that time itself was frozen in the
thawing air.

That day was peaceful, and I was privileged enough to watch the
transformation everything took as they all awoke into the spring day.
An eagle set himself upon my branches before taking a rabbit; a herd
of deer sipped water from the thawed stream that runs past my roots;
woodpeckers and wrynecks tapped at my bark in search of an emerging
meal. But later in the day, billowing gray clouds began to break the
crisp blue sky. A final winter storm was coming, and there was to be
no mercy in its last blow.

And sure enough, by evening everything was hidden in a hollow or
hole, preparing for the inclement weather. The peaceful silence
transformed into eerie, mounting tension. Not a single creature, if
any were present, moved a hair. Then, a caressing wind brushed back
and forth across the branches and buds, chilling bark and insects that
lay for cover underneath. The creaking of the old, tall trees and the
hissing wind filled the air, and a haunting chill settled like a sheet
over the forest, accompanied by the artificial darkness of thick
clouds. And as if finally deciding that this was the right spot, the
first specks of rain lighted down.

At first it was possible to almost completely ignore the drizzle,
but a crack of thunder seemed the mark for all hell to crash down. The
wind pulsed with rampant fury, and already I could feel twigs snap.
Raindrops the size of chestnuts cascaded down, as if trying to bore
their way through my trunk. And from there the storm proceeded to
build.

The clouds spat out lightning, and thunder fled from the torch of
electricity. A tree beside me had its top half turned to ash
instantly. Being one of the tallest trees around, I was a natural
lighting rod. I could do nothing but stand tall, almost poised for a
strike. I could see nothing but flashing clouds enveloping the
landscape; it was as if smoke from hell was suffocating the earth. The
wind tugged at me, and at first I thought the sharp snaps were more
lightning. But then I felt the pain, the vibrations as a branch broke
itself from my trunk, and tangled itself in the tree beside me. I
began to creak loudly as I stretched, pulled the grains of my wood,
risked collapsing from the wind. Lightning smashed not half a mile
from where I stood and watched as the sky above became a deadly show
of electric spider webs entangling themselves across the sky. The
fires that were lit across the landscape had a chance to flash for
only a moment before the rain drowned them. The ground was becoming a
giant muddy lake, and reflections broke into pieces as they were
shattered by rain. And for a moment I wondered if the tree I saw in a
million pieces that lay in the pool by my roots was mirroring the
future.

A bolt of lightning hit another oak nearby me. The impact shook me
and traveled up my spine like a cruel chill. Several buds fell from my
twigs as the small earthquake shook me, and for a moment I truly
thought I was alone in the world. For the rest of the woods, the
entire earth, was blackened in the cascading water and the shadows
cast by the looming clouds. And as I braced for another crash, the
droplets softened their sharp tick. I waited in the subsiding rain,
hearing neither roar nor tumble nor crash of a falling tree. No more
bolts of lightning hit that night, no more thunder assaulted the
chilly air.

That next morning, it was as if everything had been born anew. Had I
not seen evidence of the storm around me—the flowing stream, a burned
stump where a great willow had stood, the muddy earth now stamped with
the tracks of animals, the smell of rain still swirling in the air—I
would have second guessed the notion that even a single raindrop had
ever escaped the sky. The crisp air was new, fresh, free from the dour
night that had passed. Shafts of sunlight split through the budding
branches of those who survived, and I felt a great rush of euphony as
I realized: I had survived another year and have a year more to watch
again the transformations, the beauty, the struggles and the
successes. The seasons have so faithfully begun again, as they have
each year, and I may predict that this year may supply me with more
miracles, the ones unpredictable but nonetheless promised. And
pleasure overcame me as I imagined the dramatic swelling of life in
the forest around me that was about to take place over the next few
weeks.

Then silence was shattered by the sharp crack of a woodsman’s axe
planting itself into my bark