The Offering
Photo of a large wintery, leafless oak tree.
Once upon a time, there was a girl who always tried her hardest at everything. It was a time when the earth was dry and made of rubble and dust. A time when everything was scorched, a little red, and very, very dry.
The girl was the last girl but she did her best not to think about that. She walked the land picking up this thing and that, rearranging them into interesting shapes so that she might populate the sparse land with something like creation. So that when her eye scanned a horizon, she would know where she had lately been and where was still to traverse.
As time went by, the last girl learnt to dig into the ground to find things to make her sculptures with. She found bones and roots, rocks and ancient mycelial webs, shells and fossils: the myriad remnants of an ancient world. She brought each of these things above the earth and arranged them into shapes she found at the edge of her mind from an unremembered past.
The earth watched and felt the girl.
For years, the earth watched and felt.
The girl, she carried on making her sculptures until one day, the earth was full of them. As far as the eye could see were sculptures raising themselves up to the sky. Some were arranged like cities, the edges of each structure pressed up against another; others were there like lone mountains in a sea of dust. And when the girl saw how she had filled the entire earth with the edges of her memories, she lay down for a rest.
One day, an ancient power looked down upon the earth and was surprised to see it populated by so much love; a hive of still activity. The power turned itself into a wind and wound its way around the sculptures, admiring their beauty, feeling the way they balanced, noticing the cracks and the hollows within.
When it had finished inspecting all the girl’s work, the power also sat down to rest. It found a hollow of the earth, a place where once a great river had run through, and wondered how it might honour the girl who carried on trying her very best against all the odds. The power pressed its fingers into the dry earth and caught hold of the memories captured within. It saw great beasts crossing and children playing, and thought they should have a chance to be again. How the girl should have a chance to be with again.
The earth watched and listened to the power and knew what it should do. It raised up an acorn it had secreted deep down inside of itself, away from the bones of the wild boars and squirrels. Away from the heat and the dry of the desert above. Next, it found five drops of water from amongst the oldest place of roots and webs and it gave those drops to the acorn. Drop by drop, the earth fed the acorn with water until the acorn began to awaken.
The ancient power was pleased with the earth and gathered its very self about it. It swirled and swirled about the whole of the earth, calling elements from deep within the galaxy. For five whole years the ancient power swirled and for five whole years, the earth nurtured and protected the acorn-now-sapling, passing the elements the ancient power brought forth into the growing tree.
One day, the ancient power retreated. The elements it and the earth had gathered and dispersed had nourished and nurtured the sapling until it had grown into a tree. Around the tree were companion plants of bracken and gorse, bladder campion and bluebells. From within the earth came memories of insects and invertebrates, memories which spread themselves out above the earth for the first time in eons, and soon learned how to live again amidst the green.
The girl woke up and the girl wandered again. She went back to her work with the sculptures, placing rock and rubble here, winding old root and branch there, still pleased with her creations. One day, the girl saw an unfamiliar shape and colour in the distance. She thought perhaps her great slumber had caused her sculptures to fall or give up somehow, so she caused the distance to come near.
The girl stood before the great oak and gasped. The earth underneath her settled and moved in a smile knowing that its offering had been well received. The girl circled the oak’s trunk, placed her hands on its bark, and observed how its great boughs extended outwards like plates. She climbed and sat herself there on a bough offering herself up to the sky, just as the earth offered the great tree to her.
It has been a great many years since the girl first sat in the tree and in the time which has passed, a forest has grown up about it. Cattle have grazed, humans have walked, and many a bird has flown in the sky. The girl’s sculptures have gone now, and in their place are towns and villages, hills and valleys, and groves of wild and ancient yew. Standing amidst it all on Ranmore Common is this majestic oak tree, reminding us of the offering the earth once made to a girl who always tried her very best.