A Golden Apple

I climbed a tree last night, under the light of a new moon. The canopy was so thick that it swallowed the moonlight whole. The branches scratched at me trying to convince me to stay out of them. They brushed my skin with living leaves that bled their life onto me. They stained my knees in crimson and left a powdery golden dust for me to inhale. The branches sprinkled their blossoms as I shifted into safety. I rested for awhile on a promise that creaked beneath my weight.   Wild with delight, my bare feet dangled in the cool air, ten, then twenty feet above the moonlight drenched grass that beckoned me to jump. I felt Gravity commanding her right to me and so I challenged her authority and climbed higher! Being firmly planted on the ground had always felt safer, until now. Climbing, reaching, ascending into freedom redefines safety and the unknown, which once paralyzed me, is now a comfort.  The hardware I own keeps my neck from the freedom it once knew and looking up is still hard for me, so I don't. Instead, I reached out and felt my way into it. The tree's vessels were intently caging the core of where I wanted to be. I could hear the wind telling me to back down, but in my usual style, I wouldn't. Then it happened! The branch my hands were reaching for retreated from my grasp and Gravity maniacally laughed. Then I fell.  Slowly, effortlessly and, strangely, fear was absent. And just before I hit the ground with what should have crushed my pounding heart, I woke up! I plan to climb that tree again tonight.