Surrounded by voices, she stands alone, beneath a cedar. Needles cover the ground, dirt in her toes. She stands, grasping her elbows in the cool air of the forest, wriggling to keep warm. How she got here, I do not know. A leisurely stroll to the park, or a frantic escape from her world? She stands alone, branches of the tree engulfing her small body, almost unseen from outside the leaflets. She stands, she fidgets with her skin, rubbing it between her fingers, feelings its elasticity and flexibility. She is concerned with her skin.
“Who am I?” she asks the tree, “who are you?”
With that, a wind stirs and the branches rustle, sounding out their own language, their own response to her inquiries. She cannot discern them, she doesn’t understand the tree language. To her, the trees listen but never respond. How wrong she is?
Her breath is frequent, expelling a cool fog from her mouth. Carefully, she leans behind her and sits on the mossy base of the tree. She tilts her head back as her eyes follow the trunk of the tree, through the outreaching arms, and up to the canopy of needles and leaves where her gaze cannot penetrate to reach the top.
“This is life,” she says, “you can only see so far, but you’ll never be able to see the outcome.”
Again, the trees rustle and branches swing. She sits alone now. Is she really alone?
Alone means being without anyone, all by yourself; but she isn’t alone. A multitude of living insects, plants, and gigantic trees glisten all around her. They are all living things, she is only alone by how she knows it in an emotional sense. So much concern for emotion nowadays. So much concern for feelings and intentions. Is there any room to breathe? To be? One yellow flower stands alone on a nurse log.
“Does the flower feel alone?” she asks to the tree, “do you feel alone?”
The voices begin again, always in her head, always making noise, asking questions, never settling. She feels alone, yet the voices always keep her company. Maybe her voices bring her loneliness?
“Why won’t you just go away!” she screams at her mind.
“No!” they reply, “we must keep thinking, we must keep doing, we must keep analyzing, interpreting, watching. You should be happy you have us here, or else you would be lost.”
She is brainwashed.
The trees stand proudly. Are they actually proud? Do they know how magnificent they are? Or are they just concerned with being, right here and now, living to live, to survive.
“I wish I was a tree, or a flower,” she says, “then I wouldn’t have to worry, to think, to be deadened with this horde of meaninglessness.”
She pushes her back upon the base of the tree, sitting erect; feeling the coarseness of the tree’s bark upon her neck. Closing her eyes, she concentrates on her mind. Watching the worrisome thoughts coming into her brain, she observes them, but doesn’t indulge. She watches her thoughts as if she was someone else adventuring into her own brain. Her thoughts dance, moving swiftly and uncaringly through her mind. Back and forth, they bounce off the walls. Slowly, she sends one away, away like a balloon caught by a gust of wind and torn out of the palm of a toddler. Floating to the sky, she watches her thoughts fly away into the atmosphere. They fly so high, until even she cannot see them anymore. Back in her mind, it is still, it is quiet. There are no more questions, no more worries, no more depression; just peace, emptiness, quiet.
Sitting at the base of the tree, with her knees into her chest and arms encircling her legs, she sits quietly; as still as the being which she leans upon. Breathing, living, being, she is quiet but alive. Her thoughts have gone, now she just is. Inhaling, exhaling, chest rising and falling. Feeling the oxygen, the element of life, fill her body as the carbon dioxide, the toxins, exit. She is living to live, to feel, to be. Her thoughts do not cloud her mind, she does not worry about work, schedules, traffic, relationships. She does not worry about stress or promotions; would you call her lazy? I shudder to think what the plants and animals think of us. A being, she has turned into. A living, existing being. She has become the tree which she leans upon. Quiet, moving with the wind, being in the forest.
Her thoughts do not give her an identity. Her personality does not give her an identity. Those aspects are given to her, she has been trained in traits through her relationships, advertisements, cultural references, and societal conditioning. What she wears does not tell anything about who she is. Why do each of us need an identity anyway? To feel different from everyone else? To set ourselves apart from the mass culture? Isn’t that what being alone means? Yet, we are all so afraid to be alone that none of us actually sets ourselves too far from the ‘herd’, from the ‘crowd’. In fact, we take on specific traits in order to convince other people that we are individuals but shy away from drastic changes so that we are not seen as outcasts or ‘bums’ from normal society. However, we are disillusioned. These traits we put on to distance ourselves from mass society are actually conditioned thoughts that have also been taught to us. Our ‘identities’ are solely based upon what other people think of us and what we want them to think of us. Meaning, we are not individuals, not identified, but mere make-ups of traits, thoughts, beliefs that have been taught to us and what we want other people to think of us. ***
Therefore, an identity is not who you are, it is not who she is; an identity is learned from society and cultural conditioning. Who she is, is a being, just like the tree. She is a human, with the ability to think, question, and debate. However, her ‘identity’ is based upon the fact that just like the tree, the beautiful flower, the dirt, she is a being on this earth. Without all the thoughts which crowd and disillusion the mind, she is an earthling; a increasingly complex earthling with incredible mechanisms inside of her body to keep her living. The ability to think, to question, to debate is astounding; but the real miracle of being is the heart’s ability to thump, the lungs constantly taking in oxygen, the blood continually circulating throughout the whole body, the digestive system absorbing and breaking down food. Its amazing how much more importance is given to the ‘higher evolved’ human who is able to ask the meaning of life; while a honey bee or a toad is looked upon as something very sacrificial. Where does these levels of hierarchy stem from? Why is our ability to ask the meaning of life so special while the abilities of other ‘lesser’ beings are looked upon with disparagement? What if its a meaningless question because we’ll never be able to find the answer to it? Do you stop to consider that your body may be more intellectual than your mind? Maybe your mind keeps you from realizing what life truly is? Whats more incredible, the mind’s ability to question or the body’s ability to function? Do the thoughts that crowd the mind represent a decline in evolution instead of a rise? Why is the ability to debate and question regarded more highly than an ability to quiet the mind and be a being, surviving on this earth?
Here she sits at the base of a tree. Eyes closed, body still, mind is quiet. Breathing in the damp scents of the mossy earth floor, she breathes in and out. She is alive, she is who she is, without any impositions. She lives and dies by the continuity of her heart, of her breath. Her true identity is in her breath. Individualization is a fallacy in society, only created by meaningless actions that are learned. True individualization does not exist. We are all beings of this earth; granted, with different attributes, but this should not separate us into individuals nor give us an identity. We are all beings of this earth, from the smallest pebble to the largest mountain, from an embryo to an elderly; there is no classification, there should be no separation, no individualization, no hierarchy. Life is life; breath, absorption, circulation, beingness.
Who am I and who are you? she asked the tree. The tree knows, he is still, he is quiet. He has not been individualized or classified against by his kind. He whispers to her, always whispering, never being heard. You and I are beings, we are earthlings, we are together. You are not alone. Isn’t that enough?
