The teachings of the pioneer plants
The operator pushes the lever forward and the bulldozer presses against the wall of the dilapidated building. As the force increases, the walls start crumbling. By nightfall only a bare piece of land is left, devoid of vegetation.
When the contractors arrive after the weekend to start on the hotel that is to be erected on the site, they find the vacant lot covered by tiny shoots of shrubs. Wherever the soil had been disturbed, thousands of minute shrubs sprung up overnight.
‘Gosh’ says one of the workmen, ‘only a few days and the shrubs have taken over already!’
‘Hey, blockhead!’ shouts the tallest of the shrubs, ‘what do you mean, taken over already? We are here to do a job, you ignorant clot!’
Needless to say that the workmen are dumbstruck at being spoken to by a shrub. They look about to make sure that nobody is watching and gathers around the cheeky little shrub.
‘What do you mean you are here to do a job?’ asks the foreman after he gets his breath back.
The little shrub, because of his size, is quite a touchy fellow, especially when he deals with people taller than himself.
‘When this building was built a hundred human years ago, we were still seeds. The builders built the house unaware that they were locking us in underneath the building.’
‘Ag shame’ says one of the older workmen. ‘No ag shame with you’ retorted the little shrub. ‘Shrub seeds can lay dormant for many years only to come alive when the shrubs are needed by nature to act as pioneers. The seeds germinate. The shrubs grow fast, stabilise the soil, generate seeds for when it is needed sometime in the future, and disappear when permanent vegetation had time to germinate and grow. We are the vegetation pioneers of nature. Without us, water will wash away and wind will blow away the soil needed by trees and grasses to grow’.
‘Well, well’ says the foreman, ’shrubs are something that man fortunately don’t need.’
‘Not true’ comes a croaky voice from among the shrubs. All the shrubs turn their head buds. The shrub that now speaks comes from the oldest of the shrub families and is himself the twelfth seed in the family line. ‘Humans also have shrubs in their lives, they just call them by different names.’
‘Every time a human experiences change in his life, his reaction to that change forms the shrubs of his development’
‘What??’ says the foreman.
‘You humans believe that you have a right for things to stay the same, especially when you like it. You like your comfort zone. When something in your lives change, you look for something or someone to blame. You act like change is wrong.
The way we shrubs see it, humans, because they appropriated themselves the title of Rulers of the Earth, deny that they are part of nature. You think you rule nature and therefore are not part of it.
You should keep in mind that shrubs can crack cement floors and grow if they need to. The lion can catch the impala. The impala can eat the grass. Lightning can start devastating veld fires that bares the earth. Water can wash away the soil. Humans can destroy nature.
All the creatures and natural phenomena can use or abuse nature or we can play a role in its development, but no one of us can rule it. Because, to be the ruler of something you must also be the creator of it, and to be the creator of something you must be able to create it.
Neither plants nor animals nor humans can create nature. We can only leave it to recreate and renew itself. Therefor, we are all part of nature. We can use it or abuse it, but we cannot rule it. You cannot rule something which you are a small part of.‘
The old shrub clears his throat. ‘But I am deviating from my story.’ By now, the workmen were sitting flat on the ground, listening intently.
Just imagine, a group of burly workmen in a circle, being rebuked by a shrub!
‘Change’ says the old shrub, ‘change happens all the time. It is a continuous process. It is when a major change occurs, one which influences their comfort zone, that humans react mostly negatively.
But change is nothing else than growth and growth is a continuous process of renewal. You are born and you can hardly wait to become a grown-up human. Because that does not influence your comfort zone, you are impatient and wants to get out of school and into the stage of your life where you decide for yourself.
When you are grown up, you are where you always wanted to be. Then, if you find a nice job and your circumstances suit you, you want everything to stay unchanged.
But because you are a part of nature, you cannot stop changing. For if you stop, those who come after you will bump into you and create a human pile-up. Nature won’t commit suicide by allowing humans, plants or animals to constipate the earth.
One of the stages of change manifests itself in anti-social and selfdestructing behavioural patterns.
Alcohol and drug abuse, vilolence and crime, verbal abuse and general irresponsibility, all are ways in which agression against the status quo is used to divorce from the old paradigm and attach to the new one.
The anti-social and self destructing behaviour are the shrubs of human progress. All the abuse and the frustration that humans experience in times of change, form the shrubs that temporarily take the place of past and future values.
But, if the shrubs are not substituted by new values, the person will spend the rest of his life in the shrubs. Without exception, that behaviour leads to destruction. You humans illustrate it by saying that life is like riding a bicycle: you either ride or you fall off, but you cannot remain stationary’.
‘O, I see’ says the foreman, ‘if the new vegetation grows in the place of the old, the shrubs of self destruction disappear and one goes on with life, albeit with different values and views, or, as in nature, with different plants and grasses!’
‘Exactly’ says the old shrub, ‘now cover us up and build your hotel. In many years’ time, when your handiwork deteriorates and people’s views change, they will break it down and build something new. Then our seeds will germinate and protect the soil for as long as it takes your grandchildren to build a new building’.
‘I don’t know, it seems such a shame to cover you up now that we have met you’. The foreman seems doubtful.
“Cover up!. Cover up! I only had a century’s sleep and I had to work a whole three days! I want to sleep! Cover up! Cover up!’ shouts the cocky tall shrub.
So they covered the shrubs and built their hotel. And every time any of them had doubts about life, they would go and look how nature handled it.
They had peace.