A Love Letter to Humankind

In this mesmerizing narrative, Chris-James (CJ) Melchizedek channels the voice of an ancient tree spirit delivering a profound love letter to humanity.   What if trees could speak? What ancient wisdom might they share about our forgotten connection to them? 

The tree spirit takes us back hundreds of thousands of years to when the first humans encountered trees as "towering streaks of light." With beautiful, lyrical language, we witness the birth of a remarkable symbiosis between our mobile, curious species and the rooted, wise beings of the forest. The narrative reveals how early humans would make ritual offerings at the base of trees, receiving wisdom and protection in return. Together, these "cosmic lovers" formed a partnership greater than the sum of its parts—humans helping trees affect their environment while trees anchored humans in the web of life.

But this tale is also one of loss. The tree spirit identifies the advent of agriculture as the beginning of our separation from nature. As humans cleared forests to build settlements, they gradually forgot their sacred bond with trees. With each tree felled for human progress, we lost an essential part of ourselves without realizing it. Yet despite this millennia-long estrangement, the message ends with hope: "It is not too late. I say to you humans, recall who we are to each other, remember, remember."

This haunting perspective challenges us to reconsider our relationship with the natural world. What might happen if we remembered our ancient connection to trees? How might such remembering transform our approach to the environmental challenges we face today? Listen to this remarkable story and rediscover a forgotten way of being that could hold the key to our shared future.

This piece is available in Voice Within: a Storybook by Storytellers Edition II.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome & Introduction
• 2:42 CJ's Letter to Humankind Begins
• 4:40 The First Communion Between Species
• 6:35 Our Beautiful Symbiosis Evolves
• 9:49 The Path of Separation
• 12:02 A Call to Remember

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Ah, if you're here, this is wonderful news because it means you're here to support the authors, the storytellers and the writers that have entrusted us to share their tales through this platform. Thank you, thank you for your support, thank you for supporting this art form, and I look forward to sharing many more tales with you. So, cup of tea in hand and a couple of biggies too, enjoy the love of a good story. Oh, hello again. Now. Do you have that cup of tea in hand? Because I can assure you CJ are here and, if you've been following for a little bit, there's two interviews with CJ one that you'll find here in the subscription only page, about creative vision, the journey of to find your creative vision in storytelling and writing, and also multi-dimensional storytelling, which is cj's way of explaining his process in writing, and that one there is available as well, both interviewed by lee rickwood, who is one of also one of the authors here at voice within. So what an honor.

Speaker 1: 1:32

Cj is actually narrating his letter to humankind, piece which delves into the unity of a tree being and the human life and how it began and how it evolved in time. Now his uh vision, or description, or his visual narrative that I feel when I am listening to this has taken me really to the base of that tree, giving offerings to the tree and seeing how evolution and technology have changed our ideals in connection to nature. So this is a wonderful piece and I say no further. What's the saying? I will say no more and let the piece speak for itself. Enjoy.

Speaker 2: 2:42

Hello everyone, I'm Chris James Melchizedek and I'm reading for you a love letter to humankind from addition to our voice within. Thanks for listening. I am the old one, the teller of the tale, the tree spirit. She is here to share a story, hundreds of thousands of years in the making, of the arrival at a cruel place of fate for both of our species the dominance of you, humankind, and the broad-scale death of the tall beings of light but also to reflect on what came before, how we came to be so close and why we need each other. How is it I speak, how do I communicate with you, for whom words are the seeming sole mode of communication? Because I must, and you all of humankind must, listen, for I was of the first circle, I bore witness to the bond formed by the first of your kind and mine. But we will network how we always have since the beginning. When I speak, you'll hear, and when you speak, I will hear.

Speaker 2: 4:00

A meeting of two forms of awareness a transmission, a communion, a sense of knowing. When we come together in our openness to freely give and receive, without agendas, we will both know all we need to know. So relax, breathe and be open to the mystery of how things wish to unfold moment to moment. Our symbiosis began with your offerings, those of a wild, beautiful, young human spirit, at the time when your species was just out of the womb, with the world not yet defined, lessons not yet learned. We first appeared to you as towering streaks of light shimmering in a wondrous rainbow-coloured, barely discernible, dreamlike reality. Whilst wandering through our vast forest, curiosity drew the human spirit towards one of these towering streaks. Stopping to reach out, she made contact with its bark. It was the very first act of communion. In this touch was recognition, she felt wisdom and protection in the large first act of communion. In this touch was recognition, she felt wisdom and protection in the large, beautiful being of light. She returned, often reveling in the warm, encompassing feeling, until one day inspiration struck she must make an offering, a ritual sacrifice. She offered the tall being of light some of the eggs which made up her food source. This went on for some time until the tree, recognizing her devotion and gentle innocence, reached back. The young being was seeking the wisdom of its elderhood, its knowing and understanding of many of earth's matters to which she was an infant. And the tree was glad. It recognized both the sensitivity and relative mobility of the young being. And as she continued these ritual offerings, they began to commune. As their bond continued to grow, the tall streak of light became more increasingly defined as an object of awareness, more tree-like to her.

Speaker 2: 6:15

In this ongoing field of play, it was discovered humankind's relative mobility granted you the power of action. This was the first significant discovery between us, discovery between us. As the shared bond continued to grow, so did the tree's capacity to affect the environment. Growing too was its capacity for action. This enabled the tree to reach into the very heart of the earth, mother, and redirect her flow to reshape the weather. Thus began the beautiful symbiosis between our kind.

Speaker 2: 6:51

It became known amongst your kind that there were god trees, those who could be communed with to enhance protection and the goodwill of the earth mother for all. Back then you were far away from being farmers, the convenient path which set you on the current road of destruction, and in your open wanderings you helped us thrive. We didn't need much, but perhaps we taught you the beginnings of what would become farming, asking you to relieve yourselves around the base of the tree or to bury some food leavings by our roots. We also helped you define yourselves, enter the collective stage of forming your species personality, where the world and its definitions became a source of discovery, growth and nourishment. And so our mutual accord grew. We are like night In our stillness. Our awareness is the deeper, stable source of the earth reaching up to you. And you are like day In your motion. You are the light, bright radiance of the sky as awareness sinking down to meet us Together. We are unity counterpointing each other like cosmic lovers. We are unity counterpointing each other like cosmic lovers.

Speaker 2: 8:17

Our narrative reaches forward here far beyond the beginning. It reaches to when our symbiosis took on universal proportions. It took a hundred thousand years of using fire made from our skeletons for you to reach this new destination, but you arrived, becoming the very light of the sky. You see, in the use of fire you found so much more than warmth. You drew the light of the sun down into the earth, made your own small versions of this powerful source of universal light, became enlightened earthlings. Your awareness expanded out through the atmosphere into space, even touching other planets. This we shared and together we thrived In time as your innocence explored the world of the skies through lucid dreams and ritual journeys. Our joint radiance came to encompass the galaxy. We were the two great beings of Earth, joined in a symbiosis whose power was greater than the sum of its parts, earth reaching up to heaven and heaven reaching down through Earth. I know you've forgotten all we are to each other, how we counterpoint each other like two enmeshed cosmic lovers. But remember, I say remember, remember, recall, if you can, what we gave to each other. I know it must be difficult, for the inception of the separation was long ago Farming, agriculture, civilization, our unceremonious separation With farming, it all began, and so came the dawn of the destruction of our species and the beginning of the unearthing of yours.

Speaker 2: 10:13

Maybe you thought your own mere gravity was enough, but please try to understand. We co-evolved for hundreds of thousands of years. You'd grown to expect the benefits of our symbiosis. We were so much more in our togetherness. We encompassed you in the web of life, anchoring you down into it, while you encompassed us in the soaring orbs of awareness which marked the skies. We were so much more together and so you were so much less without us. It is true, you partly carried our power with you as you moved on.

Speaker 2: 10:52

Farming, after all, was made possible by the power both we and our smaller kin. The plants afforded you Farming gave birth to the city, the city to the government and the government to the unwholesome twins of corruption and power. For you, the city birthed invention and protection. Yet despite all your inventiveness, you could not create from nothing, but only reshape form. You turned to us increasingly as objects of sacrifice, to mould us into your cities. And when eventually, through the protection of these structures, your numbers swelled to the billions, you killed even more of us, not realizing that with each of us gone, you lost an inherent part of yourselves.

Speaker 2: 11:43

We do not blame you. For the first time, you sought shelter, not within our shade, but in clearings made where your children could play in safety from sunrise to sunset. It became clear that our kind brought the wildness of the natural world with us, a wildness you no longer cherished. Rooted in the power of the natural world, our shimmering aliveness is always balanced by the uncertainty of danger and death, two great aspects of earthly awareness. We were brought to the summit of our potential in and through each other. Together, we grew in wisdom more than the sum of our parts. Together, we thrived. Where might our journey take us if we unite once more? More than anything else, I mourn this union, its beauty, its power, yet still, despite it all, it is not too late. I say to you humans, recall who we are to each other, remember, remember.