A tiny acorn is your friend

The feelings that imprison and torment us as we grow older are also the very feelings that can lead us to something better. Our adversary is our enemy and our helper at the same time. Our suffering can destroy us, yes. But it can also make us whole. It all depends on how we chose to see it.

The tiny seed lives in the tree and clings to it like a child to a mother, an old fable tells us. Then one day the wind comes along, as the wind must, and blows the seed into the air, where it floats about in the nothingness thinking it is lost. "If only the wind had not blown just then," the seed says to itself. "If only I had been a little stronger and held on to the tree a moment longer. If only the wind were not so cruel." Little does the seed understand that it will soon be dropped into the warm earth, where it will germinate, grow, and become transformed into a majestic tree. When this happens it will look back, understand the entire pattern of its own suffering and fulfilment, and say, "The wind was my helper, the wind was my ally, the wind was my friend."

"Your adversary is your helper"

From 'The Five Stages of the Soul' by Harry R. Moody & David Carroll

"Stand still. The trees ahead and the bushes beside you are not lost.

Wherever you are is called here,

and you must treat it as a powerful stranger,

must ask permission to know it and be known." "The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,

I have made this place around you.

If you leave it, you may come back again saying, 'here.'

No two trees are the same to Raven.

No two branches are the same to Wren.

If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you, you are surely lost.

Stand still.

The forest knows where you are.

You must let it find you."