Calling a tree a “tree”

Once, in my mind, I looked at the kind of thing that is called a “tree” by others, and I said, in words, “you are a tree”. I don’t know why I did it. It was an impulsive action, like pushing someone off the edge of a cliff just because they’re standing there with their back turned. The tree didn’t like it, because it knew that words are a form of violence: in naming it, I had reduced its whole being to an image in my mind, a single word.

Therefore it chose to attack me back, as were its right. I became ill. I don’t know what the illness would be called—it felt a bit like influenza but only lasted for a few days. It had the ability to do this, because a tree has leaves, and humans are like leaves. We are connected to the branches, which are again connected to the trunks. If we look carefully, we can just find the branch, and we can see some of the other leaves around us—however, we don’t know that we are leaves, and we have no idea what a tree is. The tree is the spirit of the leaves, and by exploiting this fact through sympathy, it can influence the part of a human that is a leaf.

While I was sick, it spoke to me in my thoughts. I don’t remember what it said. I felt that it was in a sense trying to help me by freeing me from my own words, since calling it “tree” had trapped not only it, but also myself. It was trying to help me by killing me. For this to work, I would have to give up what is called “life” in a certain way, but I could not do it, and after a while I resorted to taking some paracetamol. This helped with the headache, and I stopped being sick. But it also meant that I was never healed by the tree. I love the tree, and I want it to be my friend.