Call me crazy, but I’d rather know.
I was floating down a lazy river on a comfy raft on a warm
day. I like the river and I had this nifty map, too. It told me all the rapids
ahead. I caught fish and ate them while I was camped on shore at night. The
stars were amazing, too. I was pretty happy. Every once in a while I would come
across some rapids that were not marked, which could cause some problems, or an
expected take-out spot would be unexpectedly missing so I’d have to find
another. I suspected the map was old but it never caused serious issues so I
let the creeping concerns go unheeded. Then one day I was napping in the sun as
my raft drifted along and I noticed some guy on the shore yelling. I opened my
eyes and there was a wild man on shore.
“Falls! There’s falls ahead!”
That caught my
attention. Sure enough, there were. I grabbed my paddles and started paddling
like crazy and I barely made it to shore, just before it was too late.
So I go chat with the guy on the shore that saved my life. You
know, to thank him. He had clear eyes and dreadlocks to go with you might call a
silent knowing, like he had grown the forest himself. I ask him what I should
do next. He just shrugged and said, “All I know is that I saw you and your raft
and knew that you wouldn’t make it without my help. So I yelled.”
“Well, thanks, brother,” I say.
“You’re not much safer here on land,” he continued. “There
are bears, poisonous snakes and plants, and you may starve. But at least you’re
not dead by drowning.” His smile was compassionate, radiant, and deadly serious
at the same time.
I looked back towards the river, and with a rustle of leaves
he was gone.
I remember looking down at my map. Trusting it had almost
cost my life. I realized I really had no idea where it came from or why I had
decided to use it in the first place. I went to the shore and looked again at
the falls, and then at my map. Maybe I had just missed it? Nope. It’s not on
there. In a split second I came to the conclusion that the map was worthless. If
my map missed that one spot, how can I ever really trust it again? I can’t ride
the river, therefore I don’t need the map. Or the raft, for that matter. I
pulled it far ashore and tied it to a tree. I guess you never know. But then I
thought, you know, I do know. I cut it loose and pushed it back into the water.
The last I saw it, it was airborne.
Since that time, I’ve been chased by bears, wolves and cats
and eaten poisonous plants and thought I was going to die. At times I wished I
would. I’ve broken bones that I’ve set myself and gone for days without food.
But I’m still here, and I am beginning to know the forest. I run into other
wild men and women who give me a tidbit of info here and there and then vanish
into the brush like that first guy. Sometimes they hang around for a while, but
generally they show up at odd but perfect intervals, tell me something I had to
know right then, and then leave. I’ve seen faeries and gnomes and other
creatures I scoffed at before. They cannot always be trusted to tell the truth,
but they always teach a truth of some sort, and their timing is impeccable.
What I’ve found is that the truth that all the Beings teach
is this: the forest is alive and speaks a language that will save you. While you
are learning the language you may think the forest is trying to kill you, but
no one knows anyone who’s died in the forest, as dangerous as it is. It’s scary
sometimes, it really is. At times I wonder if it had been better had I not been
warned, if I had just been permitted to launch off the falls. But those
thoughts are fleeting and silly. The only people who have died, the old ones
say, are the ones that gave up on the forest (usually after some fearful
experience) and got back in the raft and tried to navigate it with their own faulty
maps, which have never been updated. They can’t be; the river changes all the
time, and it’s different for everyone.
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