The Nightingale and the Rose

This Oscar Wilde tale is in public domain now and can be found here: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/902/902-h/902-h.htm

It’s the saddest story of all time (I’ll let you read it), but my partner realized that it was a metaphor for our attitude toward nature.

The nightingale dies for the idea of human love (spoiler alert!), while the young man in the story cannot hear the bird sing or understand the meaning of its sacrifice for one perfect red rose.

We are watching nature around us die, and we don’t understand the sacrifice the creatures of this earth are making so that we can take an airplane for a weekend of shopping or eat more than we need. Most of us don’t feel that we are rich, but we are. We’re too rich, and we use too much, and we are asking the planet to give us more than is ours to have. (Please note that there is no finger pointing here, because I’m just as bad as everyone else. I want a shower a day, and warm meals, and a tasty variety of food and and and and….)

And Foro just shakes his head, and listens to something more comforting. His song of the day is Louis Armstrong singing “What a Wonderful World”. It could be. It really could be.