Some of you will read this and think "well it finally happened. the old rat has gone off the deep end. lost his mind. What a shame, really ." Perhaps, but I prefer to think I have found something of great value and am attempting to share it.
I offer this little story to illustrate better what I said yesterday.
I don't remember ever being a raindrop! It is possible but I have no memory of it. Imagine if you will you are up there in the sky in your cloud, growing bigger, getting heavier when suddenly you are torn away! You begin to fall to earth. You wonder what has happened, are you going to die, you are suddenly afraid!
You hit the ground and go splat!! As you soak down into the earth you realize that you survived the fall. You are being soaked up into the roots of a tree. Wow! you are now part of a tree. How glorious to be a tree. You grow big and strong and reach for the sky. You remember the sky being your home. You are happy being a tree. You forget how sad it was to no longer be a raindrop.
One day you perceive a terrible danger near by. There stands a man with a chainsaw. Oh, No! He cuts you down and stacks you into a pile of firewood. What is this? I am a piece of wood. I have changed again. You lay there in the pile of wood for quite awhile. Snow begins to fall and pile up all around. You wish you could speak to your brother snowflakes as you did when you were a raindrop, so long ago.
One day the man comes outside and takes you into the house. He places you into the fireplace and starts a fire. Suddenly you are changing again. I am a burning ember! Wait I am flying! I am smoke! As you suddenly go up the chimney towards the sky you look back at the earth which was your home for so long, What will happen to you now, what is to become of the smoke.
Suddenly you look around and feel strange. You remember this from long ago. You are back in the clouds. You look down and see the earth. You lived there as a tree, as a piece of wood. Perhaps you can return as a snow flake!
Nothing ever truly dies.
the rat
