No answer required….

‘When light falls upon the leaves, it falls in many ways. It dapples, streaks, shimmers, blotches, discovers, reveals what lies beneath. In just this way in the heart of the forest the light fell upon the leaves and upon what lay beneath them. It fell upon the speckled bird elucidating his mysterious presence. And it fell upon the ground beneath the tree wherein the bird was perching. There on the ground, on the carpet of forest plants that the light dappled and shimmered. And thus the toad was revealed. There he sat, blinking his prehistoric eyelids, wrinkled and warted, and looked at the speckling bird in the branches above his head. And he too was speckled. He blinked again and the light was speckled.

‘In this place,’ he considered, ‘the admixture of darkness with light is particularly pleasing. Here everything is wonderfully warted, wonderfully variegated.’

He gazed up towards the branch where sat the bird. He gulped, and stretched out his three-toed hand in salutation.

‘Greetings, O bird.’

‘Greetings, O toad,’ the bird replied.

There was silence. No more was said. The toad had come there with a purpose. He had come there with a question. ‘What’ he thought ‘is my purpose? What is my question?’

As he sat there blinking it was as if he could not remember. Perhaps his question and his purpose had been left behind in those other places on the way. Or had they melted away into the dappled shadow and light of the place? The toad had come thinking that he wanted an answer to something or other, but in the place where he now was no answer seemed to be needed. His protuberant eyes mirrored the eyes of the bird.

‘This is unquestionable‘, he nodded to himself.

‘Greetings, O bird,’ he said again.

‘Greetings, O toad, ‘ the bird replied.

Again the eyes of each mirrored the eyes of the other.

(ref:  Thetis Blacker, the Place, extract. Cited p67-8 Temenos vol 13 )