What the Leaf Said by O’Neill D’Cruz

The wind calls, the leaf falls

– Asian proverb

As I clear the leaves and the deer netting around the hosta plants, one solitary leaf resists. In indigenous traditions (see Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer), that is both a sign and a signal from the plant. The wind whispers, Listen and learn! So I cup the green leaf and say, Speak, little leaf; speak, I am listening (1 Sam. 3:9) as I hold open the eyes and ears of the heart. And wouldn’t you know it, the leaf tells a story of and about Life. This is what the leaf said:

In all the cold dark days of winter, Mother held me inside the womb, swaddled with the earth, waiting patiently for the day and hour that only Father knew (Matt 24:36).

On that day and hour, Father sent the breeze, rain, and sun, which nourished me in the womb. Mother and Father rejoiced when the womb opened and I came forth. When I was dedicated to Spirit (Exod 13:12) I heard a voice say, “You are my beloved, in you I am pleased” (Mark 1:10-11).

As I grew up, time and wisdom taught me how all who come forth are blessed (1 Sam. 2:26, Luke 2:52). I learned that am a child of a Compassionate Father* (Luke 6:36) and the fruit of a Mother’s compassion/womb.**

One day, I asked Mother, “What thanks can I render, for all the good done for me?” She said, “Do what he tells you” (John 2:5). So I asked what I was to do, and heard the answer as a story: Remember the story of the house of Israel (Gen 44), where Judah offers himself in place of Benjamin. The answer was already and always there, but not revealed until the question was asked: “There is no greater caritas (“compassion,” “love”) than to lay down one’s life for kin and friends” (John 15:13).

So you see, said the hosta leaf, I am waiting for my four-legged friend the deer, who is hungry and whose womb also nourishes new life. When she comes by, I will say to her, “Take, eat, this is my body” (Matt 26:26). And when I restore her strength to help my deer friend bear new life, I trust that All shall be One (John 17:21). Now do you see that when one lives in/as the Message/Messenger, death is gain (Phil. 1:21), and how by losing life in service of life, we find it eternally (Matt 10:39)?

So, my two-legged friend, let me be. I gratefully do what I was born to do, or rather, let it be done through me (John 14:10).

I left the leaf in place, and the next day found it had become part of the Body of Life. A gentle breeze shook loose another leaf which landed on my shoulder and revealed the meaning of the Asian proverb: when the winds of time breeze through the Tree of Life, the leaf is released to rest on the Ground that supports all Life and Being.

May we listen and learn from the leaves and the trees, which, as Rabindranath Tagore tells us, are “Earth’s endless effort to speak to a listening Heaven.” Amen! ♦

*Ab-r-h-m, Ab(father), r-h-m(compassion)
** r-h-m is the root word for both compassion and womb

O’Neill D’Cruz retired once from academic clinical practice as a pediatrician and neurologist, a second time from the neuro-therapeutics industry, and now spends his time caring, coaching, and consulting from his home in North Carolina, known locally as the “Southern Part of Heaven.” He is a wounded healer who works to heal the wounded, in order that All Shall Be Well.

Image: Rachel Ellis / Unsplash