Write It Out: Instruction Video
“One afternoon Fluffy set out for a walk, trying to think of ways to become fluffy.
Before long he met a very large rhinoceros.
“Grrrr!,” said the rhinoceros. “I’m going to give you a rough time.”
Fluffy didn’t know what a rough time was, but he didn’t like the sound of it at all.
“What is your name, small prickly thing?” asked the rhinoceros unkindly.
“Fluffy,” said Fluffy.
The rhinoceros smiled. He giggled. Then he laughed out loud. He rolled on the ground. He jiggled and slapped his knees. He roared with laughter.
“A porcupine named Fluffy!” howled the rhinoceros.
Fluffy was embarrassed, but he tried to be polite.
“And what is your name?” he inquired.
“H… I can’t say it,” giggled the rhinoceros.
“Hubert?” suggested Fluffy.
“H… H… H… oh help, I just can’t say it, I’m laughing so hard,” said the rhinoceros.
“Harold? Or maybe Herman?” asked Fluffy.
“No,” gasped the rhinoceros. “It’s H… H… H… H… H…
…HIPPO.”
***
The Story of a Seed – MEC April 2018
It was just a small, brown seed; it wasn’t even round. More crescent shaped, like the moon when it is just starting to wane in the sky. Just brown – except for a little black stripe that ran along its’ length. It had flown around on a breeze and somehow found itself here, on a little patch of sheltered earth beneath a birch tree on the edge of a field.
The sun warmed it. The rain got it wet. The breeze dried it. The shade and the night cooled it.
It nestled down into the earth, reaching and straining with all its might to nudge even deeper. As the days got cooler it reached even farther down into the soil and found it was warmer beneath the blanket of dirt, and then began to grow. It strained so hard, it grew small little leg tendrils, white as the moon – not brown like the husk, now split, that it had come from. The little legs stretched down and down, smelling water and taking what it needed; tasting food and taking what it needed.
The legs grew and grew, still attached to the seed between pieces of husk, and layered now beneath soil and old leaves… and then snow and ice.
Until, one day, there was a change and the legs that had been so busy searching and stretching down now paused and instead clung tightly to the surrounding earth. They drew their energy back up into the seed which then started, very slowly, to stretch upwards. Like a big yawn the seed started to unfold and grow upwards. The leg roots continued to hang on to the earth and sent food and water upwards and back into the seed where the large stem had appeared.
The seed waited during the cold and the dark times, but as the days grew brighter and warmer, some heat and light tickled the stem and it began to stretch upwards even more.
Stretching up and out it soon appeared through old, rotted leaves, unfurled and found itself peeking over a skiff of snow still left there at the edge of the field. It was small, yet it felt strong from the wonderful roots it had spent so long putting down into the protection of the earth. And the sun shone, and the birds sang.
***
Somehow the prompts this week have me thinking about what it means to know who I am. How learning about myself can still be so surprising. After all, how could a person get to be “this old” and still be figuring that out? It’s enough to make me laugh! And to be okay with where I am. How about you? Are you trying to be “fluffy” or are you finding out what it means for you to be you? Share your thoughts below!
