Once upon a time, long before maidens were expected to marry men without any forethought or knowledge of their own about what type of person they would or could be, they were sent by their mothers into a strange and illuminating forest. The forest was like any other forest that you may have seen except that this one was filled with very special trees. These were the trees that knew the secrets of men. Not just particular secrets, but all of them. Why they thought the way they did and what they prattled and boasted on about to each other. Why everything men did, and how another could be convinced of it what they are by what they do and why it is being done, rather than Better than a tree that knew the secrets of men and said little, were the trees that could talk and would tell women everything they wanted to know as long as they realized that some questions need not be spoken to be answered completely. These trees, however, were the rarest of all.
It had always come as a great surprise to the men, however, to realize that regardless of how well they thought they could convince or trick women to believe what they were doing was honorable or fair, that the women almost always saw it coming long before.
The foreknowledge of these secrets, and how the women came to know them, baffled the men. Soon they gave up trying to figure out all together or where it came from. Women simply knew. Had the men been as honest as they were foolhardy, they may have confided in each other that women knew far more than they were led to believe, but men are notoriously silent about their failings, even to each other. Had they been able to discuss it, the ruse would have been revealed. They never did, however, and as a result, there was no opportunity for a woman to be blindsided or tricked. Wise mothers knew the secrets revealed and passed it to their daughters. Never once was a word spoken to their husbands of this.
Instead, the women devised a story to inform the men as to where their daughters would be off to when they turned thirteen.The mothers wold tell the men of the village that they were off to learn how to be good wives and mothers, and that was enough to have them waving goodbye while leaning on their pitchforks bragging to their boys about how dutiful the women were to sen away their daughters for them to become docile and compliant women. The boys would leer and clap their hands eager for the wonderful stock of women that would return to give them exactly what their fathers claimed they would receive, but had forgotten about what their wives knew when they tried it on their own wives.
Most of the maidens maidens traveled here together when they turned thirteen, but each would leave on their own when they felt they learned all they could of themselves and the trees who knew the secrets of men. It was suggested that young maidens learn what it was they respected and admired of themselves and would gladly give to a man by asking the trees what they would give in return. In the process the knowledge would reveal what it was that could be expected of a man. Sometimes it took only a few months, and sometimes it took years. I know it sounds strange, but its true.
Mostly
This story is not about all maidens, however. This is a story of one maiden in particular who learned as much as any other maiden before her, but had the unlikely gift of learning from two trees instead of just one. She is also the very last maiden to ever journey into the forest to learn the secrets of men from the trees that could talk. She didn't know it at the time, though, and when her story started, she was just like any other maiden.
Maidens, for reasons we are simply unable to understand, seem to develop, very early, and quite unbelievably to the rest of us, the idea that what it is that they need is based on what it is they want. When they are very young, and before their journey into the forest, they would chatter to each other about what the man they would marry was going to look like or what he would say to them. They would comment and boast to each other about the lengths they were going to go to earn the respect of these men, but almost never talked about what it was they expected to receive from them. They never knew to ask, though, because no other person they talked with knew either.it had always just been assumed that what they were going to receive was what they asked for. That is all fine and good for an honest man with honest intentions, but it never occurred to a single maiden that if that were the case, there would never be a reason to go into the forest in the first place. It was simply something that was done this way because it had always been done this way. It would have been very useful to know that when a maiden believes that what a man wants defines for herself what she supposedly deserves, and therefore needs, a very horrible thing can happen.
The maidens had traveled for many days to get to the forest. They camped together for one last night before traveling alone into the glade to search for the tree that would be most like the man they would marry and learn all of his secrets. Most did not sleep the night before. Their minds constantly raced with how they would seek out the tree they believed they wanted. This particular maiden fell asleep immediately,though, for she knew for certain what kind of tree to search for. She wanted an Oak tree. Everything the Oak would tell her would be exactly the information she needed to make finding the man she wanted be exactly what she needed. She drifted off right after supper to the sound of tossing and turning from the other maidens and the occasional question about what time it was and was it dawn yet.
"Foolish girls" she mumbled to herself.
The following morning the maiden said goodbye to the other girls and marched directly out into the glade before most were even awake. The sun had not even finished rising when she came upon her oak tree at the far end of the glade. It was not exactly where she expected to find it and the ground was so wet that it clung to her shoes in muddy cakes. She decided that this was not the type of place where she wished to be learning anything. She could see a few of the other girls now wandering about the wide glade. Two of them approached her as she knelt in the cold mud looking at the small tree.
"Are you going to be an Oak tree?" she asked the small sapling jutting out of the mud.
"The sapling grinned at her as though he knew something she did not and said
"I am sure that there are a great many things that I might be, but I won't be any of them all on my own."
Well I have been looking for an oak tree. I want to know all of the secrets of men who are just like oak trees. He has to be strong and powerful and be able to protect me as much as I will protect him, and if I work hard, It will give me as many acorns as I am worth for all that I will do. Can you make Acorns?"
The small sapling shrugged and said "Well I guess you will have to put in some effort and then wait and see, won't you."
The maiden was not overly convinced, but it sounded so sure of itself. She liked that confidence in him. Surely a typical and ordinary tree would not expect time and effort from a maiden in order to produce what it had to offer....unless it truly was an oak tree and expected to be shown that a worthy maiden was willing to expend the effort to earn the right to what it said it would give.
The other girls laughed and skipped as they approached her. She grimaced at the obvious dis concern these girls seemed to have for such a serious task as learning the secrets of men. As they got closer,however first one girl, and then the other, made a look of disgust as they realized that where it was the maiden had found her tree was brackish and damp.
What are you doing all the way out here?" one of the girls asked.
"I found my oak tree."
One of the girls peered down at the small sapling as though it were on display underneath a magnifying glass and that what had been made clearer to view, shouldn't have been at all.
"That's an Oak?" She asked with a look of unsuppressed disdain.
She spoke to the two girls, but was looking down at the sapling when she replied.
"I will wait and see".
The other two girls had no intention of standing in the mud any longer and decided they would look elsewhere. The two of them began trudging off when one of them suggested she find another oak in a drier spot. She wasn't exactly thrilled with the idea of learning all of these secrets in the mud, herself, but the sapling knew what she was thinking at that moment. He suggested that he simply go with her to a place more suitable to her liking.
"You could just transplant me to where you want to be. It isn't that hard for a maiden like you." The sapling replied, as though it made no difference to him one way or the other, and could care less whether she believed him or not.
The maiden considered this for a moment before a thought occurred to her.
"But if I move you, will you still be able to produce the acorns and give me the knowledge I need?"
This maiden was smart, and even now, did not falter in her goal to retrieve exactly what she intended to find. The sapling , however, was undetered and quickly reminded her that what he had to offer required that she put time and energy and most importantly effort into him in order to receive it anyway, so why not take him?
And with that, the maiden leaned down and carefully dug the soil out from around the roots of the sapling and carried it back to the center of the glade where she could be seen by every other maiden making the extra effort to work for what she knew she would get.
With the sapling cradled in the front of her dress she carefully scanned the glade for a suitable place to learn the secrets she needed. There was a spot with an outcropping of rocks that would have made an excellent place to stay warm, but the ground was too hard and rocky for the sapling to find purchase. There was a spot next to a pond, but wind would blow ceaselessly and perhaps damage the leaves of the tiny oak. She decided on a spot that was close to a very large shade tree that was very near to the center of the field that still afforded her a view of everything else. It was harder for her but easier for the sapling, and believed this to be her first test of dedication and sacrifice that would earn her the saplings favor. Carefully she dug in the ground and transplanted the sapling to her more suitable vantage point where she could watch everything around her and they could see her. It was perfect, but as she looked about, she found that there were not very many maidens even close enough to hear her if she felt the need to talk. Comparing different stories from different maidens about their trees would be very difficult, indeed. Best to just concentrate on what the sapling had to say all on her own, she thought.
A large shade tree had been sleeping a very long time when it was suddenly awoken by the sound of a small girl digging in the ground beneath him. He could not see her unless he swayed back and forth because his lower limbs were so broad. He watched her as she toiled in the dirt and made every effort to accommodate a small sapling she was planting in the ground. She cleared away all of the grass in a circle around it and then lined it with stones she carried from the outcropping to make it feel more protected and to keep away weeds. She walked back and forth endlessly from the pond and then back to the sapling with handfuls of water, and she sat as close to it as she could to ensure that everyone knew that it was hers.
The large shade tree was very impressed with this maiden. She was young and strong, and very eager to do what she believed was necessary to grow a tree. Day after day the shade tree watched her put every moment she was awake and every ounce of her strength into maintaining her tree. It was so important to her that after a few seasons of watching her, he realized that she did all of these actions automatically. She no longer thought of herself at all and had resigned herself to believing that it was her job to make the sapling succeed or be the cause of the failure if it did not.The large shade tree had, up until now, decided that it was not his place to talk to the maiden as she already had a tree of her own with whom she was attempting to learn the secrets. It was not his place to intrude near another tree's maiden or the secrets they would be offering to her, but it was also noticed by the shade tree that this small tree was doing nothing of the kind. It was true, that the maiden had already defined herself for seasons, and now years well beyond what would have been expected by any other maiden under the same circumstances, yet this particular sapling would have none of it except to demand more of herself rather than give so much as a whisper to her for the attempt. It had grown lazy and contemptuous thinking that it could get from her anything it wanted and she would still give her time and labor unconditionally. All of the other maidens had long since abandoned the glade and returned home and to men yet the most tenacious and steadfast of them all was still waiting. The bargain had been broken by the sapling, not by her. But so too, would the bargain of non interference between trees be broken by the shade tree. It would be broken, however, for the benefit to the maiden, not the benefit of the sapling. To remain impartial was no longer acceptable if it robbed the will of the maiden solely for its own benefit. The shade tree would not allow this to continue either way.
The other maidens would no longer coming to see her either. For awhile, they were just as eager to talk and to compare what they had learned with her, but with nothing from her to offer them except the same silent diligence, they stopped altogether. What good was a diligent maiden if she had gained nothing so far from her efforts. She would sit day after day and count the number of maidens on the field. Every season the number got smaller and smaller. At one point she even considered visiting the other maidens to tell them what had happened, but by the time she had gained the courage to do so, there were none close enough for her to call out to that would hear her. She watched them far off in the distance wink out like small stars until it was only her and the sapling.
The giant shade tree bent at its top branch and called down to the maiden.
"I am sorry if it has taken me so long to speak to you. I didn't want you to be confused by the voices of two trees when what you wished for was merely one."
The maiden had been alone for so long that she immediately jumped from where she was sitting and crouched close to the sapling believing the voice to be his. She was so completely convinced that she had finally earned the right to know the secrets of men from the sapling, that she was incapable of remembering that there were other voices in the world. She waited patiently for a very long time, but the sapling said absolutely nothing.
a slight breeze blew through the meadow as she waited, but it was obvious to the Shade tree that she was unaware that the voice came from him.
"It isn't he who speaks to you now any more than he ever has. It is me."
The maiden was a mix of emotions as she realized, herself, that it was not the sapling that spoke to her. She was crestfallen that it was not her tree, but at the same time was excited that anyone at all had thought to do so."
"Hello?"
The maiden looked out into the glade expecting to see another maiden she must have failed to notice. Maybe perhaps in the tall grass or among the rocks. There was no one at all.
"Up here. Behind you."
The maiden followed both directions simultaneously and spun about on her heel as she craned her head skyward to notice the tree as something completely different than what she had always thought it to be. Up until now, she thought it was simply a normal tree mixed in with the more intelligent, wiser ones of the glade.
"Oh. Hello. I thought you were just...you know...a tree."
"I AM just a tree."
"No I know you are a tree. I just didn't realize you were a special tree."
"And what makes a tree special as opposed to any other tree, fair maiden?
The maiden immediately realized she had insulted the tree but didn't realize it had led the question directly to where he wanted it to go.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you.." the maiden stammered as she tried to correct herself "..I just meant that trees that talk... are special."
"And those that do not?"
The maiden looked for the quickest way out of this social error as best she could.
"Are not so special. "
"Remember you said that, maiden, it believe it will become of great importance later."
The great shade tree straightened itself in the light breeze and looked back down toward her and then to the small tree beside to her. He had no intention of making this wonderful maiden feel even the least bit uncomfortable, so he pretended as though he had just noticed her without leading on that he had, instead, been watching her for many years.
"I see you have been tending to a tree."
"Yes I have. A very special kind of tree. This one is a talking tree, too.This one is my tree. I chose an Oak. I am here to learn the secrets of this tree so that when I return I will be able to find the man I deserve and who deserves me.
The shade tree looked at the small tree but spoke to the maiden.
"Did you choose that oak...or did that oak choose you?"
The shade tree continued to stare at the small tree next to the maiden. It glared up at him defiantly, but said nothing.
"What do you mean? It's the same thing either way isn't it? I mean, I am here with this tree and this tree is here with me. It really doesn't matter at this point whether I chose it or it chose me."
"I would beg to differ."
The maiden looked perplexed as she suddenly realized that this tree, although it was speaking far more than the one she spent her time tending to in the past, was doing so in such a way as to make far more questions inside of her own head than it was answering for her. The only thing wrong with it was that this tree asked questions her mind already knew the answers to, and that was rather frightening.
"Why would you object to that?"
"Because it was not the tree that was sent into the forest to learn the ways of a woman to benefit from it as a man. You were sent here as a woman to learn the ways of man from a tree."
The maiden was instantly furious, but swallowed her fury as soon as she realized that the great shade tree was absolutely correct. While she believed that she had every intention of finding herself an oak tree, it almost seemed, that up to this point, it was she who had done the majority of the work to get the small tree to where it was now with little being returned in like or in kind. As though the oak had singled her out from all the other maidens as the one to move him to where he wanted to be. She was the legs to the tree that had none but could be moved about by her nonetheless. She was the arms that didn't have to fetch the water as long as she would fetch it. It could speak but didn't, and because it didn't had nothing to be gained for her or anyone else who wished to be near her. It was as though she had given her body to a tree and it had rooted her to the ground.
The maiden had had enough of this talk. It was distracting her from what she expected herself to do unerringly and convinced that the small tree was aware of the fact that she was responsible for it. How could she not be when he hadn't done anything but sit there? Whatever this shade tree intended, it was obvious that it had irritated her oak tree and that she would now need to redouble her efforts to correct it in the eyes of the oak tree.
"I am sorry" she replied curtly "I have alot of work to do and I don't have the time to be talking right now. Perhaps later when I get a bit of free time, but right now, I have a tree to grow and eventually acorns to harvest and all kinds of secrets I need to have revealed to me. I am sure that as soon as there are acorns that the secrets will be revealed and then I will have a bit of time to relax and talk a bit before I go back to the village to find a man who is like an oak tree."
The shade tree bowed his great trunk and told the maiden that regardless of how busy she got he would always be glad to help her any way he could and that it really was no trouble at all.
Seasons passed ,and year after year the shade tree waited for the maiden to receive her acorns, but her oak tree would not give them up. Late at night, when she worried herself about what would be needed the following day, the shade tree would talk with her and suggest different ways she may be able to accomplish what it was she desired to achieve. But every day was the same as the one before, and every day after was the same as today. But still the shade tree talked to her and enjoyed all of the things the maiden talked and thought about. He found out that she was very charming and witty ,and very quick with a joke. Most of all he found out that this maiden had intended to ask very intelligent and thoughtful questions from her oak when it decided she was worthy of them. Not the usual questions of how and what, but the deeper, more meaningful questions that involved 'why'. Questions that started with 'why' often had her delving deep inside of herself to pull out truths and open admissions that separated her from nearly every person he had ever come across, but the best part of these small quiet talks was that she found herself liking the maiden that she was inside for the way that what she said was received by the large shade tree.
The shade tree cared less and less each day for what he thought he would have taken from the sapling by not speaking to her right away. It became obvious that he never would speak enough to her to look that deeply into her, nor would have ever thought to have her go into those places inside of herself to find even greater things. What he knew he would always know, but what he knew he would never tell her. The secrets were never going to be revealed to this maiden. The shade tree believed in her as much as the maiden believed in herself, however, and when she asked for advice, he would give it to her.
One late night in the Summer, when the leaves of the shade tree were the largest and greenest they would be all year, the maiden admitted that she had been waiting for the sapling to speak to her. She had done as it asked, but relied on what it was that she was doing to let him decide when she should be spoken to. The shade tree did not like this one bit, and it pained him to offer what he feared the most as the best solution for the maiden.The shade tree suggested that perhaps she should talk to it herself. Plants grew better when you talked to them. He should know. He was, after all, a tree himself and absolutely loved the sound of her voice and what she thought that there was almost nothing he would not do at her asking. She did go and talk directly to the sapling, but nothing ever changed. It remained exactly as it always had been
More time went by and the shade tree offered as much as he could to the stubborn maiden.When it was hot out and the sun beat down onto the glade, he provided her shade by stretching his longest branches over her while she worked. Still she sat and waited with her back turned toward him while she tended to the small, unchanging tree. When it was raining, his broad leaves blocked most of the rain, and when it was bitterly cold, he shielded her from the wind. He gave her a place to lean against when she was tired and rested her head against the moss covered roots that grew high on the edges to cradle her like a bed. Deep in the winter, he often shed as much wood as she needed to keep her fire going, and she nestled in deep against his trunk while she waited for the smaller tree to grow or speak.
One day, late in the Fall, the great shade tree was ready to lose its red and golden leaves when he heard the maiden crying. She had cried with him many times before, but this was an angry grief that held so much more than mere sadness. This grief had time associated with it. Not just for what it took to weep, but every single moment that had accumulated doing it in the past. It had the sound of pain and suffering on deaf ears, of sweat and of toil, and of blood. The shade tree knew immediately that this was not the time to be silent if ever there was one. He called the maiden up to him. She sobbed and said she didn't need anyone. He ignored her and continued to talk to her until she stood slowly, plodded toward him and crumpled into a heap against the great trunk of the shade tree. The tree shook its branches until the warm dry leaves covered the maiden in a soft warm bed.
"I don't have anything left to give." the maiden said as she curled up into a ball inside the leaves.
"I am tired and there is nothing left of me to give and I haven't got the strength anymore to try."
"Can I ask you a question, maiden" the great tree said.
"Yes. Always."
"What was it you wanted to know and learn from this forest and from the trees? Exactly."
The maiden wiped the tears from her face and then replied in a very thin quiet voice.
"I wanted to know that there was something inside of the tree, and in a man, that would make it all worth it.I wanted to be able to be provided for by someone with something I could see, and touch, and feel,and taste, and even to smell. I wanted to be kept cool in the summer under it and I wanted everyone to see how well I could grow an oak tree of my own. I watered when it said it needed water and it didn't grow, I let the roots dry out when it said it had too much and it didn't grow. I pruned its branches when they became unruly, and I tended the ground underneath and kept everything away from it it told me would do it harm. And most of all I wanted something that came from inside itself that would benefit me worth as much as as I put into it."
"Did you get any of that?"
"No I didn't. I gave what it wanted and I did it by taking all of me and pushing everything away until the only thing I had left was what I put into the tree. Everything else is gone"
The open meadow got very quiet for a moment except for the sound of the breeze through the leaves of the tree above her. The great tree waited to see if she would continue. When she didn't he made a very blunt statement.
"Maiden, You asked the wrong tree the wrong question."
"What?"
"You really didn't know much about trees at all when you arrived here did you?"
"No. Nothing as a matter of fact. I just knew I was supposed to take care of one to have it take care of me."
"And what did you know of men before you arrived here?"
"The same. Nothing."
"And yet you willfully walked into the forest to find a tree assuming you would know everything about it as well as you will a man?
"Um...yes"
"Not to sound condescending, but where do you think oak trees come from?"
The maiden was a bit perplexed. The answer seemed so incredibly simple, that he must be asking for something far more complicated than the only answer she could think of at the time. She decided that at least the answer she had was correct, so if he wanted to push for specifics she would work from there.
"Oak trees come from an acorn."
"When you first came into the forest, were you given a seed to plant?
"No, we were just instructed to find the tree."
"So how did you presume that it was an Oak tree you needed if you didn't know in the first place or think to ask that sapling if it came from an acorn."
"I am sorry, I don't understand what you are getting at" the maiden replied.
"While you sat there waiting for your oak tree to drop acorns to you, you neglected to know what qualities that type of tree had. type of tree you were expected by others to have in the first place , and demanded by the tree, to nurture in order to find out, but not a single soul told you what an oak looks like or that it comes from acorns.
place.
"Were you ever told how long to wait?
"Well, no."
"So how long do you suppose it will take an oak tree to produce acorns?"
The maiden thought for a moment. She had already spent the better part of ten years here and had not seen a single acorn, but she honestly had no idea how long an oak tree took to produce acorns. No one ever even mentioned it. The thought occurred to her suddenly, however, that she had never considered that it may take more years to produce acorns from an oak than there are years in a human lifetime. Would this tree have made her hope until the day she died? The revelation scared her witless, but not half as much as what the great tree said next.
"Dearest Maiden", he replied quietly, I will tell you that, as a tree myself, I know exactly how long it will take that particular tree you see before you to to produce acorns, but you may want to sit down before I tell you."
"Why do you say that?"
"Because that is not an oak tree you have been tending year after year with every ounce of your being consumed and eroded by either the effort of doing it or the fear of being seen as a failure by others if you didn't. That tree is not an oak at ALL. THAT is a Hemlock."
The maidens jaw dropped, and had it not been for her cheeks would have lost her bottom teeth in the large pile of leaves at the base of the shade tree.
"A WHAT!?!?!" But it never told me it was a Hemlock tree at all."
"No it didn't. And why should it? But you didn't ask it that either, did you? You asked if it could make acorns, and it gave you the only answer it could honestly afford to your very pointed and direct question that would keep you right where it wanted you to be, doing what it expected of you, either way. Do you recall what it was you asked of it?"
She mumbled quietly under her breath so quietly the tree couldn't hear her but she was just as shocked to hear her mutter it herself.
"What was that?" The tree asked. "I didn't quit hear you"
"I said, it told me to 'wait and see'."
"Knowing what to ask for in a question is just as important as what you are told as an answer." The tree paused for just a moment to let this sink in.
"Have you waited?"
"Yes. Much longer than I believe I should have"
"Why would a woman of such obvious potential continue at something long beyond what she even thought was prudent, herself?"
"Because I was afraid that if I didn't, that I would have stopped trying on the day just before I would have proven to the tree I was worthy of what it was I did to have it. "
The tree offered her the other possibility she had silently asked herself every single day but refused to answer.
"And how many days can pass before you realize you will never be given anything for what you have already done? Who else will ever know the price of the days that were counted by only you? It is not swaddled babes in bassinets that contemplate the days of their lives. It is only those old and broken on their death beds who look backward that can truly understand the enormity of regret."
"Do you see any acorns at all?"
"No."
"Then your job here, and the answer to your question is finished. You have accomplished what was asked and you have found the answer.There are no acorns now because there will never be acorns from hemlocks"
She stared at the Hemlock tree in absolute disbelief. As though her entire life had been summed up in a single sentence that took merely ten seconds to say, could possibly have been enough to account for the lifetime it would have taken had it never been uttered at all.
"Can I ask you why you wanted an Oak in particular?"
"Because Oak trees are supposed to be the largest of the forest and I thought I deserved the biggest and the best for what I was willing to do."
A fair statement for the most part"
"What do you mean, 'for the most part'?"
It is true the Oaks are the biggest trees in this forest, but there are larger trees in larger forests, and as for the best, what exactly makes it the best?"
"It's the biggest. It has to be the best."
"A blizzard is the biggest snow of the Winter. How do they make you feel?
"Cold...and alone"
"And yet it gives nothing different than the smallest of flurries. A mountain is no different than a stone, and yet for all of its size, builds not a single house, nor bridge, nor even the ring for a fire.
"So what do I do now?"
"Go and find a tree that does what you expect of it and shows you what you need to know of a men. Unless, of course, you have found enough already."
"But I can't just go out and spend another ten years tending to another tree. What if I do and I waste another ten years?"
The shade tree wholly understood the enormity of this question, especially from a human whose life is so much less than that of a tree, but his answer, he hoped, would be enough to convince the maiden that the alternative to doing anything but that was tantamount to suicide.
Like men, It does not take nearly as long for a true tree to produce knowledge as fruit as it does for a false tree to produce nothing at all by wasting a lifetime. "
The maiden was absolutely beside herself in a blind panic as to how to account for all the effort and time she had invested in this tree. And rightfully so, as time is a much more precious commodity to humans. To trees, even worthless non productive ones, folly that accounts for decades would be the same as a single day of mistakes to a human. Time, and more importantly, time wasted, is simply not an issue to things that have no reason to count it in the first place as a scarcity.
"Well, what if I just take what a Hemlock tree gives so that I won't have wasted my time? What does a Hemlock tree give if I can't have acorns?
"Are we going to be making solutions or excuses?"
"Okay, your right" The maiden replied. "I'm asking for help and you're giving it and I am fighting you with the answers."
"I am not in the habit of defining the particulars of other trees, but I have watched you labor greatly for many years, and will tell you what I know of that particular type of tree because you have at least earned the right to know if it will not tell you itself."
For once, the small tree finally spoke, but only for its own viewpoint, that it had done nothing different than what it always had and that it was not the fault of himself if the maiden didn't have the fortitude or endurance to deserve such a tree as himself. She was far too weak and incapable of what he was and had obviously set her sights too high for her meager abilities. The maiden bowed her head in shame and paid no heed nor recognized what it was that she had accomplished. All she knew was that what she wished for, thought of her as unworthy in its eyes.
The small glade grew very quiet as the shade tree looked down at the maiden. Her white dress was dark and soiled with dirt. her fingernails broken from tending the soil around the roots he swore were the foundation of not only himself but of her as well. Her hands were blistered in some spots, and calloused in others. Her back ached from her labors, but still she had the ability to stand much taller than the tiny tree. A rage built deep inside the trunk of the great shade tree. His patience was gone and he would no longer stand with the patience of a tree and watch this woman be destroyed by him or destroy herself.
The shade tree had only just began listening to it and had already heard enough of this irritating little sapling. He scowled down at the small tree and, for the first time, spoke in a completely diferent way. This voice was angry and contemptuous and with no pity or empathy like what he offered her.He spoke not directly to the maiden as he usually did, but to the other tree, as though she were merely a bystander to a much larger confrontation but still privy to the information. It was as though the shade tree were reading charges at a trial to the smaller shrub and who had,up to this point, relied solely on his silence and indifference as its only defense and was, now, being implicated with evidence to the contrary that would condemn it.
"A Hemlock..." he spat the word out as though beetles had infested a knothole inside of him, ".. is a poisonous perennial. That means it keeps coming back year after year. It will only grow as tall as you. Ever. It will never shade you more in the future as you see from it right now.
It will have many different names in the future, when man reaches the far edges of the earth. Those to the New World will aptly name it 'Poison Hemlock'. The Celts and the Gauls will call it "Devil's Porridge', and still others will call it 'Beaver Poison'.
It flourishes early in the Spring before anything else and is often mistaken for food by its ability to be the only plant to present itself. It is poisonous, however. Remind me to tell you of Socrates sometime. A man named Shakespeare will refer to it in a play and put the product of Hemlock in the company of thistles and burrs. All of which lose their beauty and utility. It is even believed a martyred man who will die for the sins of the world will be given Hemlock to aid in his suffering, but only by speeding his death."
The large tree suddenly shifted itself and returned the gentle tone and smile it always had for her before it asked his next question.
"Just out of curiosity, fair maiden, has any other animal of the forest come to tell you of the ways of this Hemlock?"
The maiden paused for a moment and recalled surprisingly, that she had never been approached by anything else in the forest at all save the small hemlock and the shade tree.
" No. As a matter of fact, they haven't. Nothing else has come near me at all except you, but you were always here."
"That's no great surprise to me at all. That's because a Hemlock has the ability of causing muscular paralysis that makes it impossible to move or breathe. Any animal that attempts to eat from it will almost assuredly die, but only after it as walked back off into the forest to die alone.Those that do not,and there are few exceptions, will never come anywhere near it again. Like many poisonous things, the most toxicity is found in the small seeds and the outer bark. It grows on the edges of cultivated land and in stagnant pools of fetid water. It flourishes just as well when it is ignored as tended, ad provides no more or no less of itself in either case. It is simply whatever it wishes of itself. And, not to sound as though I didn't address every aspect of this 'tree' to you, it is hollow on the inside and has a smell that has been compared to parsnips or mice.
"Well that doesn't sound very agreeable at all! Why didn't anyone tell me that this is what a Hemlock was? That's just not fair!" And why didn't it tell me that it was all of those things?
"No. No it isn't fair at all. Those who could have told you didn't know at all. Those who did know were driven away by its very nature. But how would anyone else have known what to warn you of if you were so sure of what it was you were seeking anyway? And once you found it to be a far less agreeable than you expected, what was done by you to tell anyone else that what you found was not what you hoped?"
"I'm not quite sure I understand the question."
The large shade tree waved in the wind for just a moment before starting again.
"Who, other than me, knows that what you have here is not now, nor ever will be, an Oak tree?
"Nobody knows. They can't. I simply can't tell anyone who could help me with what it is I have found. They would be appalled"
"And why not?"
"Because if they knew that I tended for this then I would have to admit that I was misled and that I was wrong about what it actually was. If I just keep telling everyone that it is an Oak tree, or tell them nothing at all, then I won't have to do anything except what I am doing now.."
Who exactly will that benefit?"
What?"
"Who does that idea serve the most?"
"Me, obviously."
No it doesn't. It serves that Hemlock tree. Which is exactly why it has sat there silently as a Hemlock while you tend to it as an Oak. Because it is your labor that makes it a respectable productive Oak that produces nothing with all of the accolades a tree of that station deserves when what it really is is a very overly productive Hemlock. It is not what it is. It is what you made it because of what it could not be on its own. That idea serves him, not you."
The maiden seemed to stare at the little tree with a duplicitous expression of both frustration and pity for the Hemlock tree combined with anger at being misled that accomplished both without it ever saying a thing.
"I am going to ask you a question,fair maiden. Do you remember what your purpose was to come to this glade in the first place?"
The maiden stared in disbelief at the enormity of the question as much as the shock and surprise that she had, indeed, completely forgotten what it was she was to be doing here in the first place.
"I was to come here to learn the secrets of the trees...and then...take that knowledge back with me to find....
The great shade tree finished the sentence for her.
"...A man".
The lives of trees are so much longer than humans, little maiden. We have the benefit of eons to contemplate our lives. Humans are so much less in the span of their lives but burn greater with all they can do beyond the limits of roots. You have learned all that you need from this forest and from these trees. Take what you know and make a life for yourself. Do not spend that short and precious life attempting to make worthy what you already know to be false. Instead, take what you have learned and go find a man.
"But how am I to find a man if I spent all of my time with one I don't want to be with? What do I know if I didn't learn it from that?"She pointed at the Hemlock tree.
"The shade tree replied quietly "You may not know what you want, but you know what you do NOT want. Perhaps that is a far better gift. We trees, and the women who rely on us to tell the truths of man, have unfairly given you the right to the knowledge of men, but we have done so by having you believe you must work, in one way or another, to get the benefit of those you care for. In many cases, that is fair and brings women happiness. But in other cases, it teaches women that in order to be happy they must still conform to the wishes of the trees, and to men as a result. Perhaps it is time for us to send a new message to women.
"What do you mean?"
The great tree suddenly groaned and the entire length of its trunk shuddered as jerked free from the ground. Large roots snapped out of the earth on one side and the shock sent bright leaves tumbling from it's branches. The sound was like a great ship splintering on rocks.
The maiden stared in disbelief and then realizing what was happening, screamed.
"What are you doing? Why are you doing this?" The tree stopped for a moment and began to speak again, but more slowly and in obvious pain.
"It is not the responsibility of women to learn the secrets of men in order to make them satisfied or happy. The fact that generations of maidens have come to this forest to learn the ways of man has shown me that it is within all women to do this simply by their nature. A woman will provide for any tree she feels is what she deserves. It is, however, the job of the trees, and of men, to do more for the maidens who love them, then to simply see how well they will work. The time has come for women to not only find these secrets on their own, but to expect that the men will no longer be tolerated if they should not live up to the expectations of the maidens who love them. There is simply not enough time for a human to learn AND to love. She must do both at the same time. Men do not have the right to exact the time from women to learn their ways if they can not repay the women with the time it takes to do so. Theft of time is theft of lives"
The great tree shuddered again and the other side of the trees roots tore from the ground. Huge twisting legs covered in soil and dangling with moss left gaping holes in the earth.
"The time has come for the trees, all the trees, to do what must be done and to show one last maiden that it means more for them to show her what she is worth, than for her to show the trees how long she can do it without benefiting from it.
The maiden still did not understand what was going to happen next, but realized that today she would be leaving this forest and go away from this giant tree that had cared for her for so long. She had learned a great deal from this quiet sentinel and never even realized how much it had been there for her while she spent year after year here in the glade. Suddenly she knew exactly what she needed to ask it before she could do anything else.
"I understand now what it is you have tried to tell me for so long" she said to the tree. " I know exactly what it is that I need from a man. I do not need anything else or any different than what I wished for in the beginning. I simply need to have that man produce for me what it is that he does, but watch how it is that he gives it to me and why. It isn't what he will gain from me but what he is willing to offer of himself. And it isn't what he can take from me but what I am willing to give. If those things are true, then there is no need to know the secrets of man. Of true and honest men and women, there are no real secrets."
"I don't think I have ever asked this, but...what kind of tree are you?"
"You wanted to know that there was something inside of a tree that would make it all worth it. You wanted to be able to be provided for with something you could see and touch and feel and taste, and even to smell. Inside of me is the sweetest golden sap, but it does not come without a bit of pain. Pain that is worth it for you to have it, though. You wanted to be kept cool in the summer and needed everyone to see how well you could grow a tree of your own. I am that tree of your own. When I needed water I got it myself, but what came from that water was given to you in the way of leaves and shade. I made myself grow. When I didn't need water, I grew moss around me and gave you a place to sleep. My branches became unruly at times, but always there was fuel for a fire to keep you warm.Most of all you needed to know that something that came from inside of me would benefit you and be worth as much as as I put into it. And for that, I have been with you every single day."
The air was completely still in the glade as the tree looked down at the beautiful maiden he had loved all these years. He was proud of her and all that she had done. Not because he had anything of them at all but because he knew that what he needed to know of her she showed him regardless. All he needed was to be near her when she needed him to be. She was everything he expected her to be and would do anything for her.
The tree gave an almost imperceptible shiver as he finally answered her question.
" I am going to show you what makes me a tree different from a Hemlock or any other tree in the forest. It is true that there are many other trees that believe they can offer what a maiden such as yourself is worth, and many more who believe maidens can be made to believe they are worth less to be had by them. I have never said that I was the best and I never said I could give you what you wanted. I can only give what I have. There are many trees that are prettier, and those that live longer. There are trees that give far better fruit off their limbs, but only one that gives from the inside. The trees that give from the inside have something else even the mighty oaks do not possess. I have weight. Go and find your man, fair maiden, but before you do, I will show you what I am and hope that what do will show you what you need to know. Do not wait for secrets to be told by those who will not speak. See the worth of men by what a tree would do, and decide for yourself.
"I am a Maple"
And with that, the tree very gently shifted against the breeze. Its uppermost branch waving like a pennant as the trunk heeled over spreading the entire width of the tree open like a fan . The massive branches underneath swinging upward and out seemed to scratch the blue off the sky. A massive crack broke through the air and the birds on every side shot into the sky as the great tree toppled from its base and crashed to the earth on top of the Hemlock.
The maiden was knocked off her feet by the impact of the tree striking the ground and the now invisible hemlock. She stood carefully on shaky legs to get back on her feet but doubted she had the strength to do so after what she had seen the tree do.
The trees eyes were still open, as it takes a very long time for a tree to die even after it falls. It noticed the sky for the first time in a way it had never been able to before. The sky always had a horizon to it. This was bright blue everywhere.
"Why did you do that?" the maiden said quietly as tears began to pour down her face. "I would have stayed here and tended to you instead if only I had known. If only I had been told."
The tree could not see her, but as always, knew where she was and that she could hear him.
"I did it for three reasons. One is that I knew would the hemlock would never give you so much as a single acorn. The second is because I know you were the type of maiden who would never stop trying to make acorns appear where there would be none, and the third was because I knew that after knowing those two truths, that you would be the type of maiden to stay with me."
"But wouldn't you love to have me take care of you the way you take care of me?
"Of course I would, but that is not what you are here for and that is not why I am on the ground now. You were here to learn and become what you are from a tree for a man, and what a tree can show you what you should expect from a man when he loves a woman.
this has to do with you on the ground dying though.
"If I was not here and had not told you of the hemlock, where would you be tommorow?
The maiden answered as plainly and honestly as the question sounded.
"I'd be here"
" When you knew you were unhappy and had worked longer than you should have, where did you think anyone who would care enough about you would find you?"
"Again, I'd be here."
"And lastly, if he had admitted to you that he was a hemlock and left this glade and that I was more worthy of your labor and work, where would you be?
"And again, I would have been here.
"Then I did the one thing I had left. He would not stop taking. You would not stop giving. And I could not stop forgetting that you are not to be wasting your time with trees at all. You are supposed to be living your life with all you desire for all you can give. Not tending to trees. Not because one can take from you, and not because you would give to another."
The maiden left the glade shortly after the giant Maple had fallen to the ground. Beneath it, only one small lacy leaf of the Hemlock remained. The rest had been completely obliterated by the mighty trunk of the Maple tree
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