Heroes Not Zombies

This remains one of the strangest trees I ever saw in any forest. In fact, it seemed to me that there were two trees here. You could clearly see two trunks arising from the forest floor, then something odd happens, the one of the left sends out a substantial branch, so substantial I’m not even happy calling it a branch, which connects with the one on the right. They fuse. Then they continue upwards in parallel, each distinct but traveling in the same direction, until about a metre or so further up they fuse again, and from that point on, continue upwards as one.

I’m happy simply to contemplate them, to trace their separate and entwined paths as they reach up to the Sun…..but I seem unable to resist the thoughts they inspire in me.

This is such a beautiful representation of how all of Life seeks out more Life. We get close to certain others, connect with them, form relationships with them, bond with them, entwine and entangle our lives with them. We influence each other. Yeah, sure, we still know that we are individuals, that I am me and you are you, but our shared experiences change us. I am not the same since I met you.

Each of us emerges from, and lives in, a multiplicity of environments. We are embedded in certain times and places. We exist within certain cultures and societies. We become who we are becoming in vast interconnected webs of relationships which span across the face of the Earth and reach both back in history and forward into the futures we will create together.

Each of us lives, an embodied, unique, singular being, never completely separate, never completely alone, never completely independent. So let’s just embrace that shall we?

How might life be if we acknowledged our entwined, entangled, embedded, embodied nature? Could we begin to share our lives better, here and now, in this present time and place, as co-inhabitants, co-creators, and co-operators?

Wherever we are….in a particular street, town, city, region, country, hemisphere, planet…..we share our entangled, interconnected lives with everyone else who has ever lived, every other inhabitant of this time and place, and every other child we haven’t even dreamed of yet.