Hagoromo

I dreamed that I was building a wooden house about one block from the ocean in a place kind of like the Romantic Zone of Puerto Vallarta with Noe and Hugo. As usual, there were a lot of problems with the house. When we had finally finished, I realized that only half of a tree that had been there was still there. It was a beautiful tree covered in great, ornate flowers like gladiolas or framboyanes, that were blue and white. A flock of huge crane-like a birds came upon the tree to feed. One of the cranes took a flower and wrapped part of it with her beak, separating the pieces so that it twirled around her beak, keeping only the central part. It was such a graceful movement and she took off with just that piece with two long streamers. Immediately, I asked for the cranes for an interview. They circled, and the one who had taken the flower transformed in one movement as she touched down on the ground. She intently came to me as a lovely woman, in flowing white robes and long dark hair, and we spoke. She said that the tree had been big and full when she was a little girl, but now it was hard to find this kind of tree and it was a rare treat. She was worried that the trees were disappearing. I started crying, and I woke up crying.

How tragic that we've taken their food sources and other sources of joy. When we love food so much, and it's such a big part of our cultures.As human beings with empathy and understanding, in our humanity it should be clear that the other living things around us also take their deepest joys from the same things we do; from favorite foods, from finding a mate, from having children, from bathing, from drinking, from sleeping in a safe place, from being able to move freely without fear of being attacked, just the simple joys of life that anyone would desire.

If we are truly human, great creatures able to understand such emotions as empathy and philosophy, we must find a way to create space around us for the creatures who also belong in our world. However difficult, we should stop cutting down trees in our cities and gardens to allow them to grow into their full half-moon canopies, and when planting trees, we should be certain to plant many varieties of food for local creatures, a smorgasbord for our avian and insect friends of delicacies like our restaurants of different cultural cuisines. The canary in the coalmine is finding it hard to breath.