Everyone Listen

Martin was a selfishly made man and viewed his success in life as an extension of the fact that he was awesome.  He believed that he had attained greatness simply because he was great.  He cared deeply for no one but himself, and spent most of his time tending his own soul, warming his own heart, and cultivating his own mind.

People often avoided him on the street.

Most evenings Martin could be found in the garden of his soul, working up the soil and planting seeds of self in tidy manicured rows.  When the planting was done he would root out the things that didn’t belong, weeding out that which didn’t fit his mood, his scene, or his place in life.  In the far corner of his soul he kept a large tank of water which he used regularly to water that which he had planted.  At the end of each evening Martin could often be found standing with proud admiration at the work he had done.

Until the day the tank ran dry.

On that day Martin, confident as usual, picked up two buckets and walked the long winding path to the river that gracefully encircled his soul, filled each one to the brim, and carried them back to pour onto the soil around his plants.  It was a long and strenuous job, and the first day Martin worked long into the night.  After a number of days of carrying buckets, Martin began to realize that he would never be able to carry enough water to nourish all that he had planted.

He needed a new plan.

If he could not carry enough of the river with his buckets, he would instead bring the entire river to the centre of his soul.  He would bend the river to his will.  Grabbing his shovel, Martin began to dig at the spot where the river and his soul met, throwing shovelfuls of soil to his left and right.  He started with vigor, but after three days of hard labour he had only created a crude ditch about 5 metres long and came to the realization that the task was too ambitious.  He would never be able to change the flow of the river.

As Martin struggled to carry buckets, and then attempted to dig a ditch, the plants of his soul began to change from a rich green to yellow, and the soil beneath his feet became dusty ground.

Martin began to despair.

Turning to the sky he lamented, “Where is the rain?  Why is my soul turned to dry ground?  Why must I watch all that I love decay around me?”

As he looked up and railed at the heavens, a raindrop hit his nose, and then another, and soon all around the water fell from the sky and turned the dust to moist rich soil. But the rain was too late for Martin’s plants, and over the next few days what had been green, and then yellow, turned to brown.

Sitting in the middle of his soul Martin looked around at all that he had lost. Exhausted and knowing he could not summon the energy to begin again, he lay back to the ground, and once again faced the heavens.

With his last ounce of strength he whispered, “Help me,” and then drifted off to sleep.

Some time later, when he opened his eyes, he turned and noticed a seedling a few inches away that had just broken ground.  Sitting up, he noticed seedlings all around him, but not the seeds of his past, these were a new thing, and they were definitely not in rows, and they were majestic and beautiful.

Martin smiled, and surrendered his soul to the new wilderness.

And at the end of his long life, as Martin walked the forest of his soul, he sighed with deep satisfaction at the shade and comfort he found there.