B Taido
A sudden yearning for nature brought me back to the hilly MacRitchie Nature trail after a long hiatus. In hindsight (as always), the attempt to run it was clearly over-spirited. By the third uphill, I was huffing and puffing, and my legs felt like lead. Fortunately, as I almost reached the top, the path appeared deserted; no one would see me capitulate to a deflated walk. I tried to recall the time when I could run the trail with relative ease – oh my, that felt like a long time ago.
Once freed from having to watch out for the rocks and roots and unevenness along the trail, my eyes connected with the forest. Even moments earlier, I would be very sure that I had seen the lush rainforest foliage, but now, the leaves seemed attractively unfamiliar. There were innumerable green leaves, in multiple shades of green, and from as many varieties of trees and shrubs, though none of which I could name. For some reason, the brown and dried ones stood out this time. In fact, I realised that the entire forest floor was pervasively covered with layers upon layers of dried brown leaves.
A particular brown leaf, still attached to a branch, caught my attention. It was oval and large, about the size of my face, and it was the last one that had not fallen from that branch. Teased intermittently by the gentle breeze, it quivered precariously; it looked like it may just detach itself any moment. But still, it hung on, dangling in stark contrast with its green and healthy neighbours from an adjacent branch.
This big leaf must have come a long way since its origins as a small and pale juvenile. Amid the unforgiving competition for sunlight in the rainforest, that it had grown to this remarkable size would be testimony to its “success”. Not too long ago, it was probably proudly basking in the sun, with an intense green sheen, industriously fulfilling its role to capture the sun energy to manufacture plant sugars and oxygen.
And then, as if through some wrathful programming of nature, it started to turn brown and shrivel. The process was insidious and ruthless. In the end, the once shiny and supple green leaf had become all but dull, brittle, and brown. It would be a matter of time that it will fall submissively onto the ground.
If this leaf had any sentience, it would probably be reckoning with its grim existential predicament. You mean that’s it? To become a leaf is merely to be born, to grow and compete for light, and then wilt and fall into the oblivion of the forest litter?
Clearly, being a mere leaf is meaningless…
But there is no “mere” leaf.
A leaf is inseparable from the plant or tree, and in that sense, the meaning of the leaf arises only in the context of the plant or tree. Similarly, there is no mere plant or tree; for they are meaningful only in the context of the forest. And the forest, in the context of the local ecosystem. And the ecosystem, in the context of the larger system of rivers, mountain and land, which in turn have meanings in the context of the continent, the earth… and maybe beyond.
But the idea of inseparability goes further than just relationships. Ancient wisdom has poetically conceived that all phenomena are created from the flow and coming together of primordial elements of earth, wind, water, and fire. Photosynthesis, the existential imperative of leaves, is a fascinating example of coalescing earth, wind (air), water, and fire (light), into the substance of the leaf, but also into the substance of oxygen, that other lives depend on. In this way, the leaf is the four elements, exists in the sphere of the elements, and serves as the conduit for the flow of the elements. There is no substantial separateness with all there is.
Moreover, in this schema, when the leaf turns brown and fall, it is never about the destruction or death of the elements. Rather, whether we invoke the physical law of entropy or the philosophical principle of impermanence, the conditions will inevitably come when the elements that had formed the leaf will be liberated – released to rejoin the unstoppable flow once again.
In seeking to be the special leaf, by becoming big, green, successful, it only becomes a mere leaf, destined to turn brown, brittle and fall. Alternatively, it may find solace by accepting its place as a part of the whole vast network of life or be one with the never-ending flow of the primordial elements. But doing so does not make it any more special as a leaf either…
If there is to be any specialness at all, it only comes from being ordinary.
Taido is a Family Physician with an interest in end-of-life care.
