What Grows Between Us
It is great to have friends
people of the same tribe
a community of like minds
banding together
week after week
enjoying each other’s company
sharing politics
religion
meditation practice
shopping
food
music
while the landscape changes around us—
mosquitoes biting
leaving welts
spiders dancing in the light
weaving their delicate webs
mushrooms capitalizing on damp ground
creating whole villages of their own
and beneath us
what we cannot see
is happening too—
roots reaching
mycelium threading through soil
one tree touching another
water moving
nutrients passing
life giving itself to life
nothing truly alone
nothing entirely separate
the patterns intertwining
forming their own economies
their own communities
their own small worlds
and when I step back
I see the larger picture—
not just a quilt
but a living fabric
where every thread
holds another
where the circle needs the square
the soil needs the rain
the mushroom needs the tree
and the tree, perhaps, needs
what grows unseen beneath it
And maybe this is what we are:
not only great
to have one another
but critical.
Inside the circle,
within the square,
beneath the surface,
we hold each other up.
We are whole.
We are one.
A small group of friends—
and a much larger
living thing.
