An Alien amongst Us?

Just think. 200,000 leaves on a single oak. It’s like a small town of leaves, living together, in harmony, without strife or jealousy. Not at all like humans. And a clump of trees would be like a city, with each tree a borough. Finally we have a nation, I mean a forest—a multitude of towns and cities—the leaves growing into millions, many millions—still all living in harmony, without jealousy or strife. Still not at all like humans. Indeed, acorns are from an alien species.

Perhaps we just don’t like harmony.

And then we have a continent of forests. Reminds you of anything?

Each autumn the leaves turn yellow, just like human skin, then shrivel, just like human skin, and then die. We do, too, we just take a bit longer. But while the leaves live they, through the magic of photosynthesis, turns carbon dioxide into air that others can breath and enjoy their own life. Throughout their annual cycle they contribute to the life of others, they make the world a better, richer place.

Do we do that? Most of us? Do we make the world a better place? Annually?

Evolution brought us to a certain point and then we ate an apple. Both of us. Adam and Eve. (I know, it’s all symbolic). And thus, symbolically, this gave us the power to say no. No to nature, no to the gifts that the leaves still possess, while we seem to have lost ours. Whatever they were. Don’t you ever wonder what were our, human attributes? What was it that would make us superior to an oak tree that gives, year in and year out, all it has, to make this world of ours a better place?

And if you don’t wonder then should you be surprised that about a billion people think that fairly soon we shall all be recycled, to start again?

That’s what they think in the East.

Here many believe that on arrival in heaven, and for ever-after, we shall continue to wonder if ever, if in any single year, or throughout our lifetime, we contributed to our world as much as every oak does year in and year out.

At least when we die, our bodies, or ashes, fertilize the earth, (like the leaves do, every year) making this a better place. Perhaps we are worth more dead than alive.

Just wondering…

For the real story of Adam and Eve, you might try my essay #50, Eve, in Beyond Religion I Series. It is an inquiry in the Nature of Being. You might find it interesting.