And upon a day as they sat in the long shadows of the white poplars, one spoke saying, “Master, I am afraid of time. It passes over us and robs us of our youth, and what does it give in return?”
And he answered and said, “Take up now a handful of good earth. Do you find in it a seed, and perhaps a worm? If your hands were spacious and enduring enough, the seed might become a forest, and the worm a flock of angels. And forget not that the years which turn seeds to forests, and worms to angels, belong to this Now, all of the years, this very Now.
“And what are the seasons of the years save your own thoughts changing? spring is an awakening in your breast, and summer but a recognition of your own fruitfulness. Is not autumn the ancient in you singing a lullaby to that which is still a child in your being? And what, I ask you, is winter save sleep big with the dreams of all the other seasons.”
And the Mannus, the inquisitive disciple, looked about him and he saw plants in flower cleaving unto the sycamore-tree. And he said, “Behold the parasites, Master. What say you of them? They are thieves with weary eyelids who steal the light from the strong children of the sun, and make fair of the sap that running into their branches and their leaves.”
And he answered him saying, “My friend, we are all parasites. We who labour to turn the sod into pulsing life are not above those who receive life directly from the sod without knowing the sod.
“Shall a mother say to her child, ‘I give you back to the forest, which is your greater mother, for you weary me, heart and hand?’
“Or shall the singer rebuke his own song, saying, ‘Return now to the cave of echoes from whence you came, for your voice consumes my breath?’
“And shall the shepherd say to his yearling, ‘I have no pasture whereunto I may lead you; therefore be cut off and become a sacrifice for this cause? ’
“Nay, my friend, all these things are answered even before they are asked, and, like your dreams, are fulfilled ere you sleep.
“We live upon one another according to the law, ancient and timeless. Let us live thus in loving-kindness. We seek one another in our aloneness, and we walk the road when we have no hearth to sit beside.
“My friends and my brothers, the wider road is your fellow