Tree Ground
There are dozens of acorns at the base of the tree; they drop nearby as I rest against the trunk, and like apples when they drop, I feel the vibration underneath me, conducted through the tree's root system. I take an acorn and remove its sheath. The fruit is bitter and I know which oak it is (white oak). While there were many trees nearby, I always sat under this one, and rested my back against it -- there were sure signs in the ground of my constant use of the spot. I had natural ownership; I claimed it without word, gesture or eventual challenge, though I knew none of these then, but it was fact anyway. I don't recall any wrong posession, and years later I am told I understood something then that others did not, and I wonder at that, too since none of this was under instruction. I'd already found my way and it was unannounced, especially to my own person. When I was drawn away from that I didn't know it because I didn't know I had it and it was mine. When I met people who didn't know trees and regarded them at a distance it eventually dawned on me something foreign was in them that wasn't in me; not quite fear or aversion, but simple distance and it gave me no pleasure but a point of reference into them as people -- as a way to discern who we were differently to one another in what I still regard as momental.