The Freedom in Being

 One of my favorite things to do with my most loyal companion, Sid, is to take a stroll up the hills behind where I live. Time after time something always reveals itself to me. On one of these walks my attention was drawn up towards this oak that had made it’s home in a rocky, sloped wall of earth. I studied the tree for a minute and then laughed out loud. There in that tree was one of the goofiest faces I’d ever seen. Comical, comfortable and light-hearted. This tree, which had rooted itself in a spot unlikely to be very supportive of such life had really made a home for itself. This tree spoke to me of it’s life and it’s message. This tree was there just being a tree for the sole purpose of just that, being a tree. It cared not what it looked like, because it is living for itself – it is living to be exactly what it is regardless of whether or not it looks funny on the outside. In that funniness was comfort and knowledge. That tree was being a tree for itself and for no other reason or want. In that observation this wonderful  tree told me to live for the self, to live for the act of living and in doing so there is freedom, freedom to be who or what you are, freedom from worry about what the outside world thinks or wants, freedom to live in your own dream.