Botanical Alchemy
There was once a man named Kian who loved God very much. One day, he found himself walking with God in a forest and asked, “Please show me your power. I desire to truly understand and experience it fully.” God chuckled and pointed to a village nestled within the woods. “You are thirsty, child. Go to that village, knock on the first door you come to, and ask for tea made from the root and the vine.”
“Great power is worry, and total power is boredom, such that even God renounces it and pretends, instead, that he is people and fish and insects and plants; the myth of the king who goes wandering among his subjects in disguise.”
Immediately, Kian did as God commanded. As he approached the village, he came across a small hut and knocked on the door. The door opened, and there before him stood the most beautiful being he had ever seen. Mesmerized, he completely forgot where he had come from and what he was doing. He had lost himself but gained something far greater. The woman’s name was Incarnata, and when she saw the lost stranger at her doorstep, she invited him in for tea. Kian stayed in the village and eventually married Incarnata. They had three beautiful children. There were times of plenty and times of scarcity, times of joy and times of terror. The years went by, and their experiences grew.
"The glory which You have given Me I also have given to them, so that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and You loved them, just as You loved Me."
One day, the rains came, and they did not stop. The villagers all fled for the hills. Kian grabbed his two children, and Incarnata grabbed the third. As the waters rose, Incarnata and the child were swept away and did not come up. Kian frantically placed his children on a high rock and dove into the water to find them, but it was too late. As he made his way back to his remaining children, he watched as the water suddenly rose up and swallowed them too. Consumed with indescribable grief, he floated in the churning waters and finally climbed onto a long, flat rock and wept.
“All ‘things’ are God made manifest in the physical. God creates unlimited possibilities which are being played out for us to ‘get it/wake up’. How easily we recognize the Divine behind a gorgeous sunset; a stunning rainbow; a majestic eagle gliding across the sky. But God wears infinite disguises. God is also peering out from behind the eyes of the leper; behind the young girl who pierces her arm with a drug-filled needle; the pile of rotting refuse which becomes home to rats and street people.”
After some time, he felt a gentle and loving hand on his shoulder. As he looked up, he found himself lying on the forest floor, and God was standing before him. “Are you still thirsty, my child?”
