Before me was a vault, vast and unknowable, with a ceiling so high it may not have existed at all. Within it were a series of holes, circular and perfect, tracing arcs from one side of the room to the other, black portals set into the vaulted sky and filled with a light so brilliant and pure it spoke only of the impossible: the circular, the crescent, and in places just the hairline curve of a fingernail.
I was standing beneath moonlight, silver rays that streamed down from a thousand moons or more.
“Impossible,” I managed, my words just vapour, particles that joined the dewy air and sank to where flowers bloomed across a carpet of grass too lush to be anything but a dream. “What moons are these?” I asked, staring at the procession of orbs that littered the sky.
Astri rested her hand on my shoulder, speaking in whisper. “Your own moon. Others. I do not know them all.”
For a long while we said nothing, Astri perhaps waiting for some signal that I would give, though I gave her none, looking instead at the sky that was somehow a sky, a night sky of a thousand worlds, one set deep underground and far below the plaza of the small Spanish town.
“You're still kneeling,” she said. I could hear the smile in her words. She was right—I hadn’t moved since the door had swung open, the only movement my body had made was to slump to the floor, overcome by the cavernous room and its crystalline light.
“Here,” she said, taking my arm and lifting me gently until I could stand. Then, looping her arm through mine, she guided me forward to where a stream ran along the ground, its low gurgle now finding its way to my ear.
“What others can they be?” I asked, my eyes still caught by the moons arrayed in the ceiling’s curving dome.
“I do not know them all,” she repeated. “Only that they are here, filling each hole in turn as they make their journey. A journey endless and repeating.”
I tried to speak, to ask something that may have had some value, but found no words. In their place were only questions, and so I said nothing, and because I didn’t speak we continued, stepping over flowers that were more vibrant than those I had seen lining the restaurant in the square, more vibrant even than those lining the cellar-like room we had passed through moments before. Ahead, the ground sloped to a depression—a nadir in the vale of the hidden sky—where in the centre there was a tree, vast and green and incomparable in its own right, its great roots like arms that stretched out to touch the blades and leaves and flowers that blossomed in every direction. The stream ran around the base of the tree, bathing the enormous trunk as though it were a tree that could only grow when half-submerged and illuminated by silver light. In the water floated flowers of the deepest indigo, their petals bearing a brilliant iridescence, and as I looked up I saw that the flowers came from the tree, the buds of its branches now swelling into bloom with unnatural speed, so swift that soon the entire tree was shimmered in purple.
Astri knelt at the edge of the stream and motioned for me to do the same. She took my hand in hers, intertwining our fingers and moving the collective creature that was our hand so that it was immersed in the cool water. Her voice began to fill my mind, though her lips never moved.
I see stories in all that is living, in the way the light hits the leaves and the air ushers in change. I see you. I see the you that spreads from your being, the roots that you have and those you are still yet to grow. I feel the blood of your heart, each pulse that it takes as it finds its way forth, carrying all that it carries and wants and gives. I see the places where it pools in loss, the moments that swirl through regret. I feel the ones you have yet to know and those that you will yet meet. I feel the shimmer of hope in the contraction of your eye and the twilight that hides behind each lid. I see all of the stories we walk beside, the ones buried and those that drift free, those that you catch and melt on your tongue, unaware of the change they impart. I see you, and what you haven't yet become. I see you, and what you already are.
When her voice faded, the crisp, cold of the water pulled me back, the singular, submerged object that was our hand refracting in the light.
“Who are you?” I asked.
Astri lifted our hand out of the water, placing it against her chest. As her skin warmed each finger, our hand dissolved to once again become two and my palm began to feel the beat of her heart. “You know already that answer,” she said. Then, reaching down she took two flowers from the ground—their petals the deepest purple, ones that had fallen from the canopy of the tree. “It is a gift from this place. To remember what you have seen. To remember what you have yet to see.”
“What are you?” I tried to ask, but couldn’t, and when I tried again we were already moving away from the tree, the moons still tracing their journey overhead as our steps carried us back to the door where beyond awaited the staircase that led to all that was above. As we stepped across the threshold I heard the door click shut. I didn’t turn, because to turn and to look was, I realised, to remove the door from my mind. We started up the steps and some eternity later we reemerged into the kitchen of her restaurant, her Jardín de Luna, although I knew then that that was just a name, not the true moon garden, for that I had now seen, and as we stepped out into the square I saw the sun was rising in the east and already there were people milling through the plaza, those drawn to this place without realising why, and as Astri held my hand in hers she raised it and kissed my palm. And then, without saying anything more, she turned and left, to become absorbed by the architecture of the winding streets and leaving me with a feeling so rich that it fills me still.
When I looked down, I saw enclosed in my hand—held gently like I was cradling a fragile bird—the two purple flowers.
*
When I returned home I was changed in indelible ways. I thought of Astri—a botanist, though not the usual type, she never having elaborated on what she meant by those words—and what had happened, the glow of memory from that small Spanish town able to be summoned in an instant. Even now, even with all the years that have passed and in remembering this story as here it is told, I smile as my mind so readily returns to that place. The purple flowers never wilted, their indigo hue remaining as vibrant and clear as the day of their gift. I have kept only one of the flowers. It lives on my desk, resting on a page that is blank. Sometimes I will move the flower and see it has left a mark, leeching something purple and brilliant onto the page. Other times, there is nothing, and at this I will smile, knowing that it won’t always be so. And on warm nights, when I place my ear close to each petal, I can hear hear her voice, as though the very fibres of the flower hold onto her words. Perhaps therein is the truth, that somewhere she resides in me still, a root or leaf or blade, something that is there beyond memory alone.
To my boss at the time, I gave the other flower. I sandwiched it between the pages of a book on Spanish cuisine. “Your cigar,” I said, for him a cigar being any kind of gift, placing the book on his desk and pushing it toward him. At the front of the book was my letter of resignation, a letter written from a certain terrace in the plaza of the small Spanish town, written in the days after I had sunk beneath the earth and witnessed the tree that grew under the guidance of a thousand moons, a letter written from a chair in the Jardín de Luna as the sun rose and then set and the warm wind blew across my skin, my life never having been more aligned with the beating of my heart.
And thus concludes The Botanist (prior parts here: 1, 2, 3) , a piece I have written over too many short, fragmented sessions. As with all words and worlds, I leave it up to you to find the meaning that speaks most true, though I will add here a short footnote to this piece: Several years ago, Josephine and I went to Bali to enjoy a short break in the foothills of Ubud. Whilst there, we had the pleasure of doing yoga in the most stunning and idyllic of locations, as the sun rose and the trees basked in its beautiful light. One of the sessions was led by a Yogi named Astri. I am not a religious person, but I understand what it is to feel connected in a spiritual way. Be it to nature, the Earth, the experience of consciousness, or perhaps something more. Astri was like a concentrated form of that experience. She emanated—she radiated—some inexplicable connection with all that surrounded her. I cannot help but think she was the product of a thousand moons. She’ll never read this, of course, but I dedicate this to her and the overwhelming presence of her presence.
I know I commented that I was going to save this for later, but I couldn’t. This is perhaps the most poetic resignation in the history of resignations! The world you create is so fantastical it would be impossible to believe without your vivid prose that brings it to life.
“To remember what you have yet to see.”
The lushness of this piece, like a message from a dream someone carries with them until death, leaves me straddling the liminal, wondering how many forces are conspiring to keep us longing, growing, seeking. I love that once the door clicked shut, your character knew not to look back, “I didn’t turn, because to turn and to look was, I realised, to remove the door from my mind.” That line feels key to the mysteries of life, that somehow when we seek conformation, when we need certainty or conversely question something that has moved us, we close the very door that opened us to it in the first place. Your character instead held it inside him, like a precious stone, carried it to the surface of his consciousness, and then took real action in the world to step toward “all he has yet to see.”
Remarkable Nathan. This one is going to stay with me for a long time.