[OSList] A Christmas Tale of Self-Organisation

[Sara Mandal-Joy via OSList]

Hi Paul - just wanting to let you know how much your story moved me.  
Are you the same Paul Levy who has written books on deep 
psychology/spirituality?  Sara
> Dear all
>
> Wishing you a happy winter season, Christmas (if you celebrate it) and 
> fulfilling New Year.
>
> Below is a little winter tale for Christmas. I wrote it last year - it 
> is essentially about self-organisation in Nature, particularly 
> enjoying the essential notion of "self".
>
> I hope you enjoy it.
>
> warm wishes
>
> Paul Levy
>
>
> *The Tale of the Squirrel*
>
> In the heart of the Ashdown Forest stands one of the oldest Oak Trees 
> in England. Here, Winter settles with its full force, a moon-white 
> frost lying at dawn until the November sun is high over the Kent 
> horizon, teasing its way through the thick canopy of trees, bereft of 
> leaves in the late Autumn cold.
>
> The Oak tree is home to several families of grey squirrels who burrow 
> through crackling leaves and cold, damp moss hillocks, and mazes of 
> overgrown roots.
>
> Here, a squirrel of some six summers was foraging for acorns, building 
> his store for the coming winter, which would bring no snow but much 
> icy rain and chilling winds which would whip through the forest, 
> creating fern-swirls, and a furious circle-dance of brown leaves.Â
>
> The Squirrel already had a place to shelter through the winter though, 
> since the warming of the land around, his hibernation would be in fits 
> and starts. Nevertheless, it is secret place of cosy, warmth. 
> Squirrels, more than any other animal in the forest, can feel cosiness.
>
> On this day, the 30th of November, Winter’s approach is keenly felt 
> by the animals inhabiting the ancient forest, and the Old Oak knows it 
> in its root and sap.
> /
> /
> /But something terrible has happened./
>
> The Squirrel of Six Summers who, if he had a name, would be called Mr 
> Curious, for that would best enfold his particular nature and 
> behaviour, is in trouble. Whilst foraging among the roots at the foot 
> of the Great Oak, a branch has fallen, weakened the night before by a 
> pair of barn owls, resting on their flight back to the farm buildings 
> near Hoathly Hill.
>
> The squirrel’s back leg is trapped – not broken – but Mr Curious 
> cannot move. For many hours, since the earliest moment of dawn, Mr 
> Curious has lain, wrapped in a clammy coat of fear, unable to move, 
> now feeling the chill in his tiny bones. All about him rove fellow 
> squirrels; they look at him, noses twitching in the icy air, 
> indifferent to his anguish. In a few days, if the little creature 
> cannot free himself, he’ll be finished, and there’ll be more 
> acorns for his fellows to store for the coming Winter season.
>
> Mr Curious pulls and pulls, trying to free his leg, but it is no use. 
> His companions would try to free him, but it is not in their nature to 
> serve each other so. Their love is in their fur, not their hearts, and 
> they cannot direct it, except in the early days of bringing forth 
> their kith and kin in the dream of golden Spring.
>
> Now, it has begun to rain, and grey Mr Curious is hungry and shivering 
> with the growing chill. Night is approaching and there will be other 
> fears to be curious about.
>
> Now listen, and you might hear it!. (Though you’ll hear only its 
> effects, in the subtle change in the wind’s cry, or the quickening 
> of the rustle of oaken branches). Something is flying through the air, 
> trunk-height, fast as a forest fairy, though not a fairy. Usually they 
> do not fly so low; they drop, like falling stars, tearing past the 
> sunlit side of the moon, arcing earthwards. They find their mark like 
> a homing bird, or Cupid’s arrow. Their light can be seen, if you 
> still all of your concerns, a flash of yellow gold in the corner of 
> your eye. They are like wisps, though they fly with more purpose, 
> there is no hint of drifting about them.
>
> /For this is the soul of a young girl, a babe not yet born, finding 
> its way from the fixed stars, looping around the near planets, past 
> the milky moon, then plunging to earth, before speeding through the 
> clear night air to the union of its mother- and father-to-be, the 
> moment where spirit spark ignites passion, and the universe is 
> realised once again, through the alchemy of the One in All./
>
> Through Ashdown Forest, you’d see the beam of golden light, flashing 
> through the trees and skimming below the branches, just above the line 
> of ferns and gorse bushes. The shimmering sprite-form travels quicker 
> than sound, though slower than light, and would dance past the great 
> Oak Tree, oblivious to the plight of poor Mr Curious, his bushy grey 
> tail now sodden and bedraggled in the driving rain of November.
>
> Dance past it would, but it halts in its flight of purpose; for a 
> fleeting moment it stays its course. For each soul, coming to 
> conception is unique, bearing with it its own unfolding story. And 
> this soul bears, amid its bright-golden sheen, a hint of violet, the 
> hue of compassion.
>
> As the spirit-child stops, mid-air, the rain ceases its fall, droplets 
> hanging like jewels on a chandelier. The air itself comes to peace, 
> and a golden light spreads over the Old Oak, across the leafy mulch, 
> over the little grey squirrel in pain, and through the hearts of a 
> host of squirrels nearby. In the time it takes for two lovers to kiss, 
> and to share their love into the creation of another universe, 
> compassion enters the glade of Ashdown forest, and Christmas comes early.
> Then the rain splashes down once more and the light is gone, on its 
> way to his goal, the wind angrily reclaims its rightful place on the 
> air, and whipping up a storm about the Old Oak.
>
> But if you were a wood-elf, you’d be in your bower, and spy 
> something very strange and wonderful. As the golden soul flies towards 
> a warm bed of two lovers, three grey squirrels are kicking with their 
> back legs at the fallen branch, riding its circularity, like beavers 
> on a log, floating on a river, and the heavy wood is rolling away from 
> Mr Curious, freeing his bruised but otherwise unharmed little back 
> left leg, and he is able to scramble free.
>
> In those few moments, four squirrels are aware of their true 
> compassion, awake now, in heart and tiny head, they are nuzzling 
> around each other and making tiny noises that would sound to a 
> storyteller like laughter and chatter.
>
> Then their noses twitch in the wind, ears turn in heads keen and alert 
> for nearby forest noises heard on the breeze, and they gather up 
> acorns in their mouth-pouches, and scamper their separate ways, in 
> search of their cosy leaf and fern beds, warm and safe in the 
> approaching winter’s night.
>
> The End
>
>
>
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