WHAT THE IROKO TOLD THE SEED.

Tree: *Clearing throat, sways graciously from left to right**speaking**

Hello Seed, I saw you weightless under the wind yesterday. Then later, you were tossed around by some little bird. How are U enjoying the Sunshine today?

The Seed: I'm envious of you. Whenever I look at you, I see myself, what I can be that I've not already become. Your girth swallows up my pride, your size dwarfs my courage. Birds nest in your branches, resting in what has become the glory of your strength. These same birds toss me about. I thought we have the same gene?

Tree: Yeah, we do have the same gene. Do you know how long it took me to become this big? Do you know how much summer and winter I've seen? The time when I was swayed here and there by the wings of the wind? What you see is my length and girth alone, you are missing something.

Seed: And what is it that I'm missing?

Tree: You've not noticed my foundation. What is keeping me up is down, deep down.

Seed: Why do you speak in so much parables? ‪#‎Adongerit‬.

Tree: ‪#‎Udongerit‬? Oya, stay there and be doing phoneh. #Udongerit? You know what? I was once like you. A seed, a small seed with little relevance. But until a grain of seed falls on the ground and dies, it remains a single seed.

Seed: Are you saying I have to die before I can become like you? How preposterous!

Tree: Cool down and learn, calm down and drive slowly. The death process is the transformation process, the time when the old dies for the new to come, when you metamorphose into something with a new ability to begin your journey towards becoming an Iroko that you are meant to be.

Seed: *Shrugs* Everything was going on well until you brought death into the picture.

Tree: I see you are afraid to put off the old. But then, you can't become an Iroko tree just by lying dormant there. You have to be ready to lose your old self to slip into your new self.

Seed: Okay, so how soon can I become like you?

Tree: It will take some time. But you know, it is said that the best time to get planted is 20 years, and the second best time is now.