Spirit

 Spirit

Many years ago…

There was an old oak.

It grew on a bluff, overlooking a Great Lake.

It was tall and strong, steadily growing season after season,

deeply rooted, with its branches reaching toward the Sun.

One day a lonely young man, burdened with the cares of life, 

sat down on its massive root, leaned up against its trunk, and gazed out over the lake.

He liked the tree’s ancient presence.

Its branches seemed to be raised in reverence, and its root seemed to ground him.

He began to meditate, and his spirits rose.

For months and years thereafter,  he’d come to the tree to meditate silently.

One day, while doing so, the man, no longer young, asked aloud, “Why am I here on Earth?”

Just then a whisper of wind blew through the oak leaves,

and he seemed to hear within their rustle a voice, saying, “I reach out to the Light.” 

At that moment an energy rose up through the root of the man's body,

through his trunk, and his upraised limbs. 

The man had attained enlightenment.