Maya’s Tree, Nature: No Other, Just We

(Continuation of thoughts based on Maya’s “On the Pulse of Morning”)
When strangers in a strange land, who have known oppression and then responded with Heart, harken to the cry of the Rock, they may sing along with the song of the River. Having been awakened and impassioned, they are prepared to hear the Tree, planted next to the River.
The groups mentioned here have experienced the throes of bigotry, prejudice, and destruction wrought by those who work in Ego energy, those who plug their ears to the cry of the Rock and fail to see the how they pollute the River. Responding to our heavy history is the message of the Tree; it leaves nothing to imagination or interpretation.
The twenty types of people mentioned in the transition from the River to the Tree seem to represent the most significant aspects of humanity. They arise from the litter of nationalism that hates and rejects those unlike themselves, nativistic thinkers who litter the shores of the River as they inhumanely degrade and seek to destroy the Other.
The list of the Others includes the following categorizations of people: ethnicities, nationalities, religions, socioeconomic statuses, sexual orientations, and careers — a fairly broad spectrum of humanity. This swath of humanity that harmonizes with the singing river and hears the plain truth of the tree represents everyone, the hater and the hated, the oppressor and the oppressed, for, deep down, all have a Heart to know the truth of Spirit. They have “a true yearning to respond to / The singing river and the wise rock.”
Not all will listen to their own Heart; not all even know where to begin. Some purposefully shut out not only the voices of Nature, the soul of this world and universe, but also they reject the testimony of their own Heart and choose Ego, that part of us which isolates from others and works to promote and preserve self at all costs in a multitude of ways, ways that sometimes include hate and destruction.
As the Tree speaks, we may learn we do not require Ego for safety, security, fulfillment, and peace. We are One — no Other to fear, all others to love.

• Maya Angelou
• Poetry
• Nationalism
• Nature
• Ego​​