The Smiling Willow

When I want to know how the Earth is feeling… I don't ask the mountains, the rivers or the sea… I walk down by the lake and visit this old willow tree. Legend says (and who am I to dispute this ancient, long-held belief… that all the emotions the Earth is feeling…find their way into the willow leaf. That the feelings in every mountain, valley, river, every ocean, every sea… somehow find their way into the roots of the willow tree. The legend is clear: When there is peace, when harmony, kindness, love and acceptance reign between the Earth and all her creatures… when these are the feelings the willow is compiling… she sleeps each night in peace and when she wakes…we will always see her smiling. But the legend is also clear: When the Earth is in disharmony…when war, hatred, prejudice and discrimination across the Earth are sweeping… The willow cannot sleep and we will only see her weeping. There was a time, the willow tells me, (those times I sit with her a while) when each night she would sleep soundly… and wake each morning with a smile. But, she adds, from the moment humans walked the Earth… No-one has ever seen her sleeping… that now she spends every moment of every day… by this lake…awake…in silent weeping. And she tells me that from her roots into her leaves… how every day she yearns…. for the day when she can sleep again… the day her smile will return. That she's tired of being a weeping willow sad her weeping is all any of us can see…. and how she'd much rather be the smiling willow she was planted on this Earth to be.