On the plains of Planet Xoco, Maazak, a young Elder of the Corn Kin,  moved through the fields in her green robes. Row by row, she tended to bodies like a nurse, to spirits like a priest. The thought that she had neglected her children cut into her with sorrow.

Her brown hair hung to her shoulders. Once golden, it remained as a vestige of her fertility— darker each day and thinner. But her children were many and the time had come for them to step into their inheritance. 

Quite literally, for they were of an age to begin to walk in the world. Xoco was a planet of Plant People. The plodding of the tree tribes, the slither of the vinelings, the rolling gait of the melonmen. Their landscape was always in motion.

Maazak’s kind, the Corn Kin were part of a larger family of Grain Walkers. They possessed a strong connection to the memories of their ancestors, the forefolk, and with this knowledge, she recognized that the world she had a part in building was sadly in decline. That the soils, and the souls were depleted. That the children were lacking vitality. 

But she had been too focused on her own vision of things. 

Maazak saw in her children an astounding potential that she knew could be developed—with a little more focus, with a little more time. Further evolution from their roots as simple grassfolk, into beings that could harness the power of the Sun. For this had been the way for many generations—a goal of growing greater.

Until the rot set in.  

It was the same for the other Ripening Ones—the emerging Elders of the Fruit Folk, the Vegetables Folk and the other families of Grain Walkers. After years of running rampant, they found the ground would no longer support them.

But deep in the forefolk memories, she could sense another way.

Standing in the middle of the field, she asked a question to the One Mind who dwelt in the great central sun.  

“What is to be done?”

An answer began as warmth in her skin, then rivulets of yellow liquid light that filled her spirit to a deeper state of ripeness than she had known could ever be.

A state that is known as Enlightenment.

At the moment of saturation, she heard the sound of bells in he distance coming closer, and a voice singing, bringing direction, as a word whispered though Maazak’s mind:

“Communion”

(The Egg tender sings)

Maazak understood now that her vision for her children was not so misguided. It had just been missing is purpose. Their potential to hold these great stores of power was precisely entrusted to the Plant People for them to share it with other life forms, the future folk in worlds that were to come.

To feed and nourish. To heal disease. For structure and shelter. Even the ability to offer moments of enlightenment. 

In her vision she had seen that it would start with the creation of a very special egg.

With a deep inhale, she let the light return to the world on her breath as a song.

For music is spirit made manifest, and to share it with the world was an act of deep communion.

”The time has come, beloveds

to cast old ways aside

Reach deep into the soil to find

The mystery it hides

of how the light that shines above

is held within the deep,

its power waiting to emerge

as silent seedlings sleep.

Ever since you first awoke

and pierced the tender dirt

you’ve fed upon the sun and rain, 

sent roots into the earth.

You felt your body fortify

Your stalks grew firm and strong

You grew a crown of foliage,

Your branches stretched out long.

But I have come to understand 

that like the morning dew

evaporates into the air

and then returns anew

So it is with the light

that makes our bodies grow.

And if life is to flourish, 

we must learn to let it go.

So stretch your face upwards towards

the golden light above

Let your leaves and petals be filled

with sweet nature’s love

but know these days of fullness

will soon end as all things do

And just as you have fed on life, 

so life will feed on you. 

You thought the days of summer would go

on for evermore

but I have seen a vision of what

Nature has in store: 

a world in which life and death

forever are entwined

and bodes fall to feed the new

and free the light inside.

So gather round, beloveds

and let us celebrate

communion with each other

in these golden days

and the beauty of surrender when the

gold fades into brown

and the black night that awaits us

as the green sleeps in the ground.”

The Vegetable Folk and the Fruit Folk and all of the other Grain Walkers had drawn in closer to listen. To a leaf they agreed, their lives of mere consumption had not brought them satisfaction. They too believed that they were meant for something more than this.

They came together in the last days of summer to share in a great feast of sustenance and song. 

Maazak and all the Ripened ones wove stalk and leaf into an egg shaped vessel, and filled it with seeds for the future, with music and the golden light of the sun,—a yellow egg that carried the spirit of communion, and the hope of transmutation in the shadow of sacrifice.

Maazak understood now the cycles of time, and the Plant People’s place in the renewal of the world. This transition would not be their end. But their bodies would become still as their spirits expanded. And a day would come when only the wind moving through them would remind future folk what the world was like when the Plant People moved across the land.