Evolution - Part 2

Every morning before going to the fields to work, Tumaini would walk to this one tree, say good morning, hug the tree for while, put his cheek and ear against the rough bark, and just feel things. He would do this for a few minutes and then sit in front of the tree to begin his observations.

This tree was probably more than 500 years old and very tall. At its base, the main trunk was bigger than Tumaini's one room house and it was taller than 100 of him put together in a row. Its canopy covered the entire area of the football field in the village. There were a few other trees that were this big in the forest below the line but for Tumaini somehow this one was special.

Tumaini would begin his daily tree routine by closing his eyes and feeling his surroundings. The wind moving, the birds singing, the glaciers crackling, the water flowing. Slowly he would begin to narrow his attention to the tree surroundings. The almost imperceptible things around it like the movement of its limbs or the small temperature variations around its trunk or the falling of its leaves.

With time Tumaini became especially attuned to feeling, filtering, and interpreting those events that seemed independent and not driven from everything else around him. The events that seemed to have a will of their own. And then, he began to write it all down in a special notebook his father had given him when he learned to read and write many years ago.

With time Tumaini began to see patterns. It started when he began to feel immediate changes before and after his arrival every morning. Like a mood change in the tree. He wanted to know if the tree did any of those things as a result of him being there or if they were just driven by outside things like the wind.

The first breakthrough happened when he began to notice that the flow of zap in a specific location in the trunk of the tree would follow specific patterns when he arrived and when he said goodbye every day. The same pattern regardless of what the weather was like. Like morse code. This were the first two words they learned together. As simple "hello" and a simple "goodbye."

Over the next few years, Tumaini learned to also read the movement of the tree's branches. Initially, Tumainin would communicate with the tree by tapping on the trunk the same patterns he had seen in the branches and the flow of zap. This tapping evolved to specific pressure patterns that Tumaini would apply with both of his hands to the trunk. This way they taught each other how to communicate.

He learned that all of the trees around the world are connected through their root systems and that they acted as one being made up of many independent organisms – like ants in an ant colony except there was no queen or leader. It was a symbiotic relationship built on love for each other and for all the life on earth.

Tumaini learned that the tree's name was Hekima.

Hekima explained to Tumaini that because they covered the entire earth, they did not need mobility. Over the ages, trees had evolved to live in place, strengthening and supporting each other, so they can think and transcend and learn other skills that are not readily available to humans because they are too busy just doing what they do every day.

Hekima explained that they had begun to connect with other worlds like this one and had begun to form a larger consciousness network in the universe to better understand evolution and the reason for everything.

Tumaini asked Hekima if this was the first time humans and plants had communicated. Hekima said yes, and more importantly, that Tumaini was the key for humanity to take its next big step in its evolutionary quest.

Tumaini could not sleep that night thinking about what Hekima had said.

TO BE CONTINUED ...