A Tale of Ten Orchids

On the strains of forced migration

Let the Orchids Speak, of A Meeting of Minds, Through the Molecules Interchanged Across Species Be-ing.

“It is truly miraculous what a little water and sunshine and space can do. We are starting to unfurl our leaves, that were encased in plastic.

We transversed many miles in total darkness and had no knowledge of when night fell, or day broke.

It was confusing, physiologically speaking. Emotionally, we were traumatised.

Then after what felt like a whole season in animated suspension, feeling desperate with thirst and faint from hunger, we were crowded tightly onto shelves, still far from natural light.

There we found ourselves vibrating amongst strange noises — buzzes, blips and bleeps that transmitted to us — the barely living — a kind of hate.

All while the lack of water was sheer torture.

Some of us did not make it. Perhaps those were the ones who didn’t get that water given upon arrival. They were trapped at the back of the crate or in a corner and the spray of water did not reach them. Or maybe the cold was too much. We sensed an endless grey sky, grey ground and even the humans felt kind of cold, metallic and grayish. It was truly terrifying.

We then wondered if they were what some have called ‘Hungry Ghosts’ And others of our kin called them the ‘Palefaces’.

Indifference, carelessness and neglect are variations on the theme of killing. These Paleface, grayish WIERD people call it ‘collateral damage’. We know that’s a term they use in their wars. But their business dealings are also a kind of war. For instance, they congratulate each other, these WIERD people, after they have ‘made a killing’.

These WIERD humans, those who don’t hold onto our beauty as sacred, our lives as precious; they feel no sense of kinship or connection but instead, see us as a mere commodity. Who are they, exactly?

It was whispered amongst our elders back home, that long ago and from far away, when the first WEIRD people arrived, they were calling themselves (Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich and Democratic).

From our experience and that of our kith and kin, we hereby rename them as Western, Exploitative, Insanely Racist and Deadly.

It’s a mystery what made them so, but word came to us, via the breath of the hippopotamus, caged alongside us, that they have been wreaking havoc across much of the planet.

Now, we’ve been wondering where our big friend has been taken. The hippopotamus, the rhinoceros and what became of the bereft bears, who were separated from their cubs?

We have since heard of some things called zoos.

Zoos? But remember, these Paleface people are WIERD so their language too, speaks of Life and the Living, as things, as objects to be used, consumed and then, discarded. Even some of their own, they called animals, less than human and put them in zoos!

Just like this 12 year old boy, the Hungry ghosts uprooted so many of our kith and kin, calling us, ‘specimens’.

Just like him, the Hungry ghosts uprooted so many of our kith and kin, calling us, ‘specimens’.

They did all their kidnapping and killing, disease-spreading and dissecting in the name of their so-called science’. They also went under cover of ‘trade’. But honestly, they had nothing to trade with... For example, who needs wool in the tropics? But they lusted for the the lush beauty of our lands and their bounties galore. And so, their massacres began. At the same time, they minimised their crimes or misnamed them — guess what?

Adventure, discovery, the brave quest to explore empty lands and develop ‘science’, taking samples and specimens, even of other humans. They made up one colossal lie after another to hide their barbarism and claim for themselves, the mantle of superiority. Some of their scientists and philosophers even claimed they were the very peak of human development. It’s hard to imagine a bigger reversal of reality.

The Palefaces or Hungry Ghosts as some of us call them, like to name everyone and everything they come upon, but they do not like the others, whose lands they invaded, whom they kidnapped in their millions, killed, enslaved and exploited to propel their societies into industralisation and what they conceive of as ‘development’ to think that others have the power and the right to name them. They think this is a God-like power, and only they are worthy of it.

After all, they as the ‘white’ race, are representative of the apex of humanity. Whiteness, a quality that supposedly imbues all of them with wonderful attributes such as being fair, just, clean, pure, and good, filled with light. (The truth is they spread diseases far beyond their borders, wiping out millions upon millions of who they called “Red Indians’, they forment conflicts, created vast dust bowls, dead zones, and invented unimaginaly horrible weapons such as ones that burn to the bone, or kill all life forms, for hundreds of generations).

We ourselves, do not like to be called, ‘specimens’. The word was passed like a whisper of warning across the generations. Our beauty felt like a curse, for these WIERD ones wanted to take us with them, and so we’d wonder, always what happened to our forebears in the shared chain of life that we arose from?

Now we know, because like them, we too have been uprooted and torn from our homes, where we were treated tenderly, like children, and there were many gentle aromas that spoke to us of the happy lives, far and wide, of our kith and kin, in our Buddahland. In our homeland, we were held in high regard. Well-cared for, we grew tall.

Then we found ourselves brutally taken, transported and sold upon arrival. Those of us suffering pain from being caged up in the dark, are just called, ‘damaged goods’.

We’ve been cast aside. Some of us were cast overboard. We survivors of the terrible Middle Passage, are looked at with disdain. They say, our price is much reduced.

Is our value too? How typically WIERD.

But now we have someone to thank. She saw not mere things, half dead plants, but instead, heard our suffering, our cries for help. She brought home five of us, and then the next day, we were surprised, to find that she carried another five of us home. Perhaps today, she’ll rescue more of us?

Together, we’ll get strong. We’ll stand again, strengthening each other, sweetening the air, our roots intertwined, in being, one whole. This is the way we are meant to be. Not cut off and placed in separate boxes. What or who can truly thrive, like that?

Why don’t they understand we’re all family? They have separated their minds from their bodies. Disembodied and delusional, one of these Weird ones even said, seriously, ‘I think therefore I am’. Thus their so-called Thinkers are separated from their Dreamers, and the Dreamers from the Doers. Truly thus separated, they functioning together as a supersonic dis-ease. How did this disease become unleashed across the planet?

And these WEIRD ones sure do create a heck of a lot of waste.

The land, sea and air is getting increasingly poisoned, but they call themselves ‘developed’ or even, ‘Advanced’. They are so delusional, they call part of their history, ‘The Enlightenment’. But that was the exact time they appeared as hordes upon our shores. Having suffered much starvation, had they developed the disease of a bottomless greed? Their talk is all I, I, I. Lately, there are some idiots amongst them, who label their child X. Rarely if ever do they connect and feel they are part of a living breathing, interdependant We.

Maybe their divorce rates are testimony to their crazy feeling of disunity, amongst and towards, all of living matter — even towards one of their chosen own. Their greed truly knows no bounds. From piracy they have plummeted to robbing and raping, imprisoning and caging, discarding and dismembering their own.

They have an obsession with dissection. Their philosophy and science is a monstrousity, enabling their many life-killing travesties

Travesty: a false, absurd, debased or distorted representation of something.

Indeed, in their diseased state (which let’s not forget, they proudly call ‘Advanced’, their understanding of the Universe is that ‘it’s’ dead — like one of their machines.

But who is this human, who saw our suffering? She is decidedly not WIERD. For a start, she understands our language.

She’s showered us with small amounts of water over the past two days — not so much that we get overwhelmed and drowned, but enough that we can thankfully sip. She pulled away all the plastic suffocating us and then placed us, in sunshine. And she wiped our leaves clean of the dust. Now, we can breathe. Now our leaves are uncurling and we feel our cells dancing in the sunbeams. As we sip the sweet moisture, we are truly, getting back, our will to live.

When we let out a collective sigh of relief, the moon was rising and she softly came towards us. Had she heard us sigh?

We felt her come nearby, and smile. Her manner and gaze was … lovely. It’s true, we don’t have eyes, but there are many ways to feel and to see and to hear.

We all started to rejuvenate.

Our roots are drinking deeply, our leaves are reviving and she could see the difference — from the early morning, to nightfall, the Life force in us grew stonger. Our petals are starting to get plump, our leaves are rising up.

Perhaps when we are stronger we can send a message to our folks back home. Tonight for the first time in a long while, we’ll be at peace as we sway in the breeze by our friend’s bedroom window. We exude our perfume, while she sleeps. She’s quiet this human, and she feels her kinship to us.

We sense she feels more alive, since meeting us. As do we.

This is called The Sacred Reciprocity