You begin your journey at the place your roots were planted. Not by your own volition, but by the choices of your ancestors. You are fertilized by their love and watered by their affection. They protect you from creatures that may mean you harm.

Your trunk begins to rise with nutrients from the soil your ancestors planted you in. Unknowingly predestining where your branches will seek sunlight from. Your ancestors teach you valuable lessons learned from their roots. Perhaps not seeing how different their soil was from the one you now reside.

Your branches expand and your trunk ascends higher. Morals and ethics are bestowed upon you by the soil and creatures that surround your deepening roots. Yet as your trunk rises up and your branches even higher, you start to see other branches upon your horizon. Fuel from the creatures discarded and used, lessons disguised as foul excrement unwanted. Disgusting behavior and cruelty unwarranted, creates twisted roots sunken below.

Your canopy grows many skills contained within your leaves. Branches forgotten grow beyond your control. Growth unguided has hindered the branches seeking the sun. Your ancestors gone no longer able to help, you follow the stars to find your golden path.

Creatures surround you defenseless and alone. You lash out feeling fear and anger wanting only to be safe. Not knowing your ancestors should have guided your growth. Unprepared and afraid your growth becomes stunted. As creatures abuse you and rob you of your leaves, you become isolated and turn inward. You find solace in darkness and turning inward to find peace. Roots growing deep in soil unfamiliar, praying for water even salty shall do.

Years pass unnoticed, many branches abandoned, roots have grown rotten while waiting for water and fertilizer that never comes. Your roots grow stronger from hatred and neglect, only to find new strength required to be transplanted.

New soil has been found and your branches are pruned. New growth flows through you as though you’d never seen the sun. Your roots untwist and the rot sheds away. More branches sprout from your trunk in places you never imagined you’d have before. Leaves of warm colors shine brightly above. You must reach higher to see why they glow red hot.

Trunk grown anew to heights previously unfathomable. Those same creatures below devouring one another while spewing the same bile they consume. Stuck in a cycle that blinds and maims. Guided by corrupt morals devoid of all ethics. Without ears, without eyes, how can they possibly learn? You avert your own eyes and feel only pity, no longer hatred nor contempt. Perhaps those embers above can save those sad creatures below.

Finally within reach the heat overwhelming. Not mere embers, but great blazes that scorch all they touch. Your branches are full of old leaves that are brittle, ready to catch flame and become ash to enstill rebirth below. Pain and sorrow greet your branches without mercy, expecting resistance but finding the opposite. Willingly sacrificing leaves and branches alike, the ultimate pruning of oneself to lift even your roots to these pillars of flame.

The process complete, decades spent in great service to something higher than your own. Worth every second to feel what you always craved from creatures and ancestors alike. Never knowing it was within your own grasp below your canopy all along.