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My Crowded Sanctuary – Clare Sheridan

Not until the church-goers were safely tucked away in their pews did the metallic, unemotional voice of Neville Chamberlain, through the wireless, announce the existence of a state of war.

One might expect such an announcement to be accompanied by a momentary eclipse of the sun, or that the birds might falter in their singing, or the seed-grasses stop swaying with the wind; but no, there wasn't even an appropriate hush. Only in my heart a sudden sensation as of bursting bonds.

As there was no one at hand, I went to my tree and outpoured all that I felt, feared, and foresaw. He was not unsympathetic, but seemed a little surprised by my psychologic upheaval. Nothing, of course, disturbs him - not even an explosion of dynamite beneath his feet. He just conveyed, simply and calmly, that although certain things may happen - violent, shattering things - there are stabilized elements upon which nothing can effect a hurt or change. One should associate oneself with these elements, he said.

Time was not a factor with which he could deal. To him Time was not. He lived outside of Time. Nevertheless, for mortals, whose method of thought is time-enframed, he urged me to contemplate the span of time as represented by his tree. Things we called 'events' had happened, but they had made no impression whatever upon the space we surveyed-no impression upon space! I must look farther than just the earth - I must look out upon space, as he did, ignore time: float, in fact (he didn’t use the words, but I gathered this is what he meant)-float upon the cosmic ether.

One would never dream that such a philosopher could live in a tree.