Liber Iovis - Chapter 37

Verses

The Year Star returns slowly enough for a child to become a different question.

Wood does not conquer stone by argument. It enters a crack and continues being patient.

Growth is not always upward. Roots perform their philosophy underground.

The branch that boasts of height has outsourced humility to the root.

Twelve years pass. You call it a cycle because you survived long enough to notice repetition.

The wise gardener does not command the seed to awaken. He removes what prevents awakening.

A tree expanding in every direction is healthy only while there is still forest around it.

Jupiter is called Wood Star. Consider how strange and accurate a name can become when translated through centuries.

Do not curse winter for interrupting growth. Continuous summer makes deserts too.

The student asked how to become greater. The teacher handed him pruning shears.

One ring of wood says: I endured. A thousand rings say nothing louder.

The cat under the plum tree waits without doctrine for the branch to drop its shadow.

Every empire loves the metaphor of growth and hates the metaphor of pruning.

The year does not return you to the same place. It returns the sky.

Plant what will shade someone whose name you will never learn.

Do not ask whether your life is large. Ask whether it has branches another life can use.

When the cycle closes, leave one gate open.