Saturday, July 20, 2024

Once Again.....

 I wrote this one back in 2018....but it resonates for me today so I am re-sharing.

A Single Root...

I spent a quick few days reading another Lee Child book featuring Jack Reacher. We've read a lot of this series.....they are quick and I like the main character. And about half way through this one I realized "I've read this before!"....but I couldn't remember the ending so I just kept on.

There was one paragraph, early on, that made me stop and re-read it several times....and made me wonder. "Fourteen miles. Aspen groves blazed like flares on the slopes. Whole copses of hundreds of separate trees, but all joined together underground by a single root" An aspen wood was all one organism. The largest living thing on earth." Really??? How did I now know this??? How is this possible??

It made me start thinking about inter-connectedness....and how one tree supports the next and the copse just keeps growing. I found a drawing on the internet.....and began remembering our trips west and all of the aspen trees we've seen. Never knowing that they were so closely related.


And then my imagination spun off from there....and I looked at the drawing and thought about family. My little family....spread out all over the country but connected by heart strings and in spirit. And the larger family of man. Wishing the world population could see it self as an aspen grove.....individuals but connected. By blood lines, heritage, culture.....and if you trace history back far enough, we all came from one small "aspen grove".....and spread from continent to continent.

Wondering why it is so hard for us to see the similarities....instead we focus on the differences and let those drive us apart. An aspen wood = all one organism, but not the largest living thing on earth....that would be man. So shake hands with a neighbor, smile at a stranger as you walk down the street, contribute some school supplies to a child who needs them.....we're connected....just below the surface....

No comments:

Post a Comment