Where Moss and Rust Consume

Did you ever notice, as you go about your daily life, the many small things around you, beneath your feet, that are worthy of recognition, even appreciation for their beauty? But these things seem so ordinary, so small and common-place that they are easy to ignore, even scorn. Why are these things worthy of our attention? Because, in their way, they are perfect, and they have much to tell us if we stop and marvel with a child’s open mind. It has something of great value to give you if you would take a moment to receive it.

Consider the humble moss plant. A common sight in shady places. Very easy to overlook because the leaves are so small. And yet, there is something quite compelling about this modest little plant, this survivor on our planet for at least 500 million years. It is sobering to think that it has existed in its current form for so long. To try and stretch the imagination around such a vast arc of time is both humbling and liberating.

Having stretched the imagination so far one way, into the past, now send it into the future by an equal amount to achieve a balancing effect with the now as the fulcrum. This common little plant, so easy to overlook, can place you at the fulcrum of a billion year span. What more is there to see?

It is unlikely that we humans will survive a billion years in our current form. And when we have morphed into something else, the moss will still be growing silently in its shady places. Think then that if this one little moss-plant growing here and now can make a human think these thoughts, what then about the countless others growing elsewhere, in deep forests where humans never tread, or on city footpaths ignored by the thousand commuters. All of them have the capacity to inspire, but so few actually get the chance to. Do we lament this lost potential? Does the moss lament its unrealised potential? No to both questions. They simply exist and need no other reason to be.

In 1975 I visited an ancient forest in New Zealand. It was then as it had been for many millions of years. The trees were magnificent, tall, straight, and massive with so many inner concentric rings. The leafy canopy illuminating this ancient world. And on the ground was moss on a scale never before seen by me, an Australian used to heat and drought. The moss covered the ground, almost every bit of available ground, covered with a living layer of moss perhaps a meter thick. It was soft underfoot, soft like a mattress and exhaled a primeval breath when walked on. I felt a reverence for that moss. I wanted to lay on it and be embraced by it. And I did. Visit the forest

And this forest spoke loudly, in its silent voice, of the ages that had passed and of those to come. I was a time-traveller offered a sacred glimpse of the ages, all by sitting quietly on the pillowy moss and simply allowing myself to be there, in the moment.

Perhaps that is why I notice moss now as I go about my daily life. The sight of a small piece growing in the cracks between pavers awakens that transcendent feeling from my visit to the forest around Lake Te Anau.

Moss is a metaphore. It speaks of time, vast strecthes of time. Where moss and rust consume is metaphore of our place in the world. It stretches our appreciation of the fourth dimension. If you can look at a humble little moss growing in the cracks and see a billion years balancing on that tiny fulcrum, then time has become a friend that tells you about life, not an enemy that will eventually kill you.

David Tuffley

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