A peacock, a weasel, and a pear tree

The peacock

Peacock was molting. It was his first molt and and he wasn’t taking it very well. He was very proud of his feathers. He thought of himself as the most handsome creature in the garden. He loved to strut around Julia’s Perennial Tea House impressing guests when they came to buy peonies and drink tea. But now he was afraid. At any moment he could lose another feather and it was only a matter of time until his rump looked bare and his fan of color was gone. He could see the trend, but he didn’t want anyone else to know what he was going through. Each time a feather fell out he surreptitiously took it in his beak and relocated it to a hiding place. And when he showed off his fan of color he was coy, not opening the fan all the way, so that what feathers he still had made a solid band of color, even if it was a narrower band of green and blue than it used to be. He hoped it looked intentional, as if he were in too much of a hurry, going someplace important, to open his fan all the way.

The weasel

Weasel knew exactly what was going on and where Peacock was hiding his feathers. Weasel slipped unnoticed into the tea house and through the gardens. She had a habit of eavesdropping and knew everything about everyone who frequented the tea house and gardens. She ate the voles who frolicked under the pear trees, and she sold peacock feathers down the road to a shop keeper. Often she wondered if she was a good weasel or a bad weasel because of her slant on honesty and the violence of her diet. But she reasoned: I am a weasel and the natural way of the weasel is generally looked upon as no good until it’s needed. No one else can do what a weasel can, what a weasel dares, or goes in and out of tight spaces likes a weasel can. Weasel couldn’t flaunt it, but she was proud to be a spy.

Pear Tree

Little Pear Tree had no fruit. Her flowers fell to the ground but no ovary swellings developed where the petals had once been. For a short season Julia and her visitors admired her when she wore the flowered gown, yet for the rest of the year she was ignored. Still Little Pear Tree waited. Through many adverse years she waited for her own pears to come. Is it possible to be helplessly faithful? Even a tree has choices. She smiled and raised her arms to the sun. She reached deep into the earth for sustenance, and lent her leaves to be a telephone for the dead. Little Pear Tree meditated all summer, grew her roots around rocks searching for water and fungi friends. She tried not to dwell on what she didn’t have and she worked hard to mature into a fruitful tree. There was a drought this summer and voles had nibbled on her young trunk the summer before, before Weasel came and ate the voles. She simply had to hold onto life and depend on the love and care of others, the animals, the fungi, and the people. Some day I’ll be simply wood, perhaps even ashes, or hugelkultur. Even for a tree, surrender can be difficult. When fall comes and finally takes all Little Pear Tree’s leaves she wakes up naked and alive in the quiet solitude of snow without expectations or high hopes for fruitfulness.

Anything can become an ego trap, you have to be flexible.