THE TWIG THAT RULED THE RIVER!

THE TWIG THAT RULED THE RIVER!

It was a small tree growing on the banks of a flowing river.  The twig was happy to be born.  It got care & attention from the tree.  The tree gave shelter to many dwellers - birds, squirrels, insects & sometimes an odd assortment of animals.  Some of them paid attention to the little twig whereas some of them could hardly care.  The twig started growing up amidst the daily clamour of chirping birds, the sound of little squirrels running for food, the buzzing sound of bees looking for nectar, the softness of early morning dew & the warmth of the morning sun. It saw beauty everywhere - fresh leaves sprouting forth, buds turning into flowers, colourfully patterned butterflies coming out of cocoons, a wide variety of flowers romancing the bees.  The twig was happy being born in such a place.

It also thought itself important.  It grew buds, flowers & leaves which attracted everyone.  The tree nurtured it constantly & gave all it asked for.  All the tree dwellers & many outsiders paid attention and came calling every now & then. Some came for the nectar, some for the leaves and a few just for shelter. The twig returned the affection it got.  It would welcome every visitor, talk to them and provide them with whatever it is that they came for. 

It was however afraid of two things - the Wind & the River.  They always seemed to be on the move - never stopping for anyone or anything.  The wind was also unpredictable.  Sometimes it was soft & gentle.  Sometimes it was fierce & wild - threatening to take everything with it.   The twig tried to hide from it but never really could.  The river on the other hand was quite intriguing.  The twig couldn’t make out where it started & where it would end.  Just that it kept flowing & flowing.  It found this behaviour of the river quite odd & inspired fear.  It wanted to keep away from it.  It never wanted to leave its own little home.

The Wind finally did it!  It carried itself at great speed.  It tugged hard at the twig.  The twig desperately tried to cling on to its tree but the wind was too strong for it.  It wrenched the twig free and carried it away.  The twig tried to resist, turn back to where it thought it belonged but the wind just wouldn’t let go.  The twig flip flapped around but little avail.  As it was carried away from the tree, it felt intensely afraid, desolate, disconcerted, hopeless & lost.  To make matters worse, the wind finally deposited the twig in the River! 

The river immediately started carrying it away.  The twig realized that the River was wide & deep, far more formidable that what it had thought.  It was also extremely powerful.  As it moved, the twig was dashed against rocks, got caught in currents, was thrown up in twirls & was bounced up and down against the flowing stream.  Besides, there were other beings here – which the twig had never seen before.  Strange beings which were inside the river & somehow alive.  The twig lost all its hopes.  “How could I possibly survive against such strong forces? I have to give up!  I have to give up my dreams, my excitement, my looking forward to life.  I have to submit!  I have to submit to despair and hopelessness and wait for the inevitable to happen!” the twig thought.

The twig also intensely hated the Wind & the River.  “What did they have against me?  Why did they do this to me?  They are just evil monsters – destroying everything they touch. But what can I possibly do?  I am so small & weak and they are so strong!  Nature hasn’t given me anything to protect myself against them.  I am just at their mercy” the twig thought.  As it looked back, it couldn’t see its tree.  It was away forever. 

With this feeling of utter hopelessness and willingness to perish, the twig stopped resisting and submitted itself to the river.  The river gushed and roared and kept carrying the twig with it.  As the twig waited for its death, it looked below.  It could see the river bed far down below & suddenly realized that it was not sinking.  It seemed to have at least one thing going for it – it could float on the river!!  This brought a ray of hope for the twig.  “Maybe, just maybe, I could use this to my advantage against this river” it thought. 

The twig focused on this seeming strength.  It had to avoid getting dashed against rocks & thrown around.  So it started to move about a bit.  “As I act on my ability to move around, my direction seems to change accordingly” it realized.  Now instead of submitting itself, it began to sense its environment.  It saw a rock coming up, so it moved around a bit and was able to avoid the rock with ease.  The twig was elated.  “Wow, I am not so powerless after all” it thought.  This built its inner strength.  It became conscious of the momentum of the river, its various perils and learnt to move itself around them.  Soon, it had mastered the art of navigating the river.  “At least, I don’t have to perish” it told itself.

The twig was now comfortable in the river.  The river also seemed to have temporarily slowed down.  The twig decided to see beyond the river.  It seemed to have been too focused on it anyways.  It saw a huge canopy of trees, plants, shrubs and grass growing on the banks of the river.  It saw the same sight as far as it could see.  “How come they are so close to the river?  Don’t they know its dangers?” it wondered.  It decided to get closer to the banks and warn them. 

It soon reached close to a bank and was shocked to see the roots of the trees inside the river!  “The river has already started consuming them” it thought.  It called out to a big tree and said “Be careful of this river.  It is a dangerous one and can destroy you... so keep away”.  The Big tree smiled and said “But little one, I can’t do without the river!  And neither can the river do without me! So we have to stay close to each other”.  “How is that?” asked the astonished twig.  The Big Tree said “I get my food from the river.  The water that it carries feeds me and all the creatures dependent on me.  In turn, I help the river in many ways.  Why, you owe your own existence to the river!  Without the river, you would not have been born!”  The twig now realized why its own tree was close to the river.  It also realized that since the time it landed on the river, it had dealt with fear & hopelessness, learnt new things & had moved forward.  This brought back its sense of excitement and gave it inspiration to move forward.  So it navigated itself to the center of the river again.  It soon began enjoying the flow of the river.

As it was floating, it spotted a frog sitting on one of the rocks.  The twig moved closer and addressed the frog thus “Hi there.  I have never seen someone like you before.  What are you?  And what are you doing up there?” “I am a frog and alternately live on the land & in the river.  Right now I am taking in some fresh air.  The Wind is carrying it fresh today”. The twig shivered at the mention of the Wind.  “Don’t get too close to the Wind.  I am where I am because of the wind”.  The frog laughed out loud.  “Don’t be funny.  What we will do without the wind.  If there was no wind, what we will breathe, how will the birds & bees fly?  Even the trees need air to breathe.  Why, you owe your own existence to the Wind.  The air it brought helped in nourishing you.  So the wind is my friend”.  The twig was delighted to learn this.  It realized that everything that it had known – birds, bees, plants, animals, river & wind were all dependent on each other.  It began to see the whole, rather than the parts - the interconnectedness, the symbiotic relationships, the fact that it too was a part of the whole and not the whole itself.

The twig also understood that as it explored and acted, it gained new perspectives and had arrived at a new meaning to its existence.  Though its circumstances hadn’t changed, its perspective had.  It no longer thought about its tree – that was the past.  It was now thinking about its present - the river, the wind and the world surrounding it.  It had learnt to navigate this world & become comfortable with it. 

As the twig rejoined the flow, it wondered “I am comfortable now but where am I going?  What is my direction? I obviously can’t change the course of the river. So do I have to go where it is going? Can I decide where to go?”  It decided to visualize where it wanted to be.  As it focused on its future, the visual became vivid and clear – a space full of trees, birds, bees, romance, love and attention.  It wanted to be on a tree again!! This visualization filled it with great inspiration.  It wanted to make it happen!  Against the logic of the situation it was in, it felt that it can be done.  It had to find a way to go where it wanted to go! 

The twig reflected on its past. It thought about the way it had reached here.  The Wind, the River, the Big Tree, the Frog… wait… there came the answer.  But of course… the Wind!  It was so simple.  The twig just had to wait for a strong gust of wind to carry it back.  It had already learnt to navigate the River – probably it could navigate the wind as well.  It was filled with hope! Visualizing the future and a determination to achieve it had shown it the way.  Now hope will help achieve it.

As is the nature of the wind, it picked up speed.  On the surface of the river, the twig could feel it.  But the twig had layers of water over it and could not reach the Wind!  It waited for a stronger gust of Wind.  The Wind picked up speed but still the twig was where it was!  It was then the twig realized that it had to once again break free – raise itself up & meet the Wind!  Filled with renewed hope and determination, the twig made a massive attempt and raised itself up.  Lo & behold! It was soaring.  What’s more, the wind immediately dried it up, making it lighter. It was able to soar higher and better.  It had risen above layers of water which were its present to meet the speed of the Wind.  And it was now soaring towards its future.  It was a wonderful feeling!

Now it had to navigate the wind – the twig used the same technique as it had learnt in the River.  It found to its ultimate delight that it was able navigate the wind with comfort.   Using this to its advantage, it first soared high above.  It got a wonderful bird’s eye view of the landscape below - the flowing river & the forest surrounding it.  It could actually choose the area in the forest where it wanted to be in, right down to the tree. 

From high above, the twig also saw that the river ultimately met an ocean, a seemingly endless expanse of water.  The twig felt that it would have probably got lost in the ocean.  If it had not invested in its future and continued to focus on the River, it would have ended up in the Ocean. It thanked itself for acting in time. 

The twig felt highly empowered and powerful.  Constantly learning and acting had brought it to this stage.  It was now keen to get to its future – a Tree.   It choose a particularly big one and navigated to land on it.  As it landed, it felt tremendous exhilaration.  It had reached where it wanted to be.  It was now filled with excitement for the future, hope & a confidence in itself.  But it did not want to lie still on a branch – it wanted to be part of the whole again.  And just as it was thinking, a beautiful bird came along, picked up the twig and wove it into its nest.  Once again, the twig was close to all that it loved.  But more importantly, it was now filled with confidence that it if were to get uprooted again, it would know how to get back!

The twig had realized that the greatest miracle of life is life itself & the ability to live it fully!