Dream #61,739
Year 24, Verse 108 of the Sixth Mass Extinction

I am a baobab tree in South Africa, near the confluence of the Olifants and Letaba Rivers. My life is long, over 1,100 years so far. The name I go by is the Tsonga phrase Wa Ndzi Rhandza, which means “You Love Me” in English. I am indeed beloved by many creatures, both human and animal.

I have a thick, bulbous trunk. Centuries ago, it got partially hollowed out by a lightning strike. Didn’t kill me! Made me more useful! The spaciousness inside me makes a welcoming shelter for humans and animals alike. Sometimes visitors spend the night.

My favorite guest is Ku Tsaka (“to rejoice” in English), whom I know in some of my other lives under different names. She is a luminous human emanating kindness and grace and intelligence. She sings to me. She tells me stories about places I have never seen and adventures beyond my reach.

Her voice is richer than starlight. Her touch is as healing as warm rain that ends the dry season. Her fragrances remind me of how much I love everything: amber and cinnamon and pearly pomegranate and the flowers of umbrella thorn acacia trees.

I’m as tall as eight bush elephants stacked on top of each other! As wide as three of them! So I have a huge capacity for storing water—37,000 gallons! This enables me to thrive during the dry season, which is half the year.

People carve and paint my fruits for art and play, or they use my fruit’s pulp to make porridge and delicious sour drinks. My leaves are a tasty vegetable and can also be brewed into soup and sauce.

Fibers from my inner bark are useful for weaving baskets and ropes and fishing nets. As long as I don’t get too many fibers stripped away, I can regrow myself. Creatures treat me with care because they want to come back later and harvest more of my gifts.

Most of me is wonderful medicine. Those who suffer from malaria drink my pulverized roots and feel better. Parents like to bathe their babies in the water where my roots have soaked. It’s good luck! People use my parts to stop sneezing, dispel too much phlegm, cure asthma, soothe insect bites. If they steep my seeds in water and drink the potion, crocodiles will not attack them.

Each of my many large white flowers opens once a year, at night, and lasts just 24 hours. But not all of them bloom at the same time, so there is a ripple effect. They have a tart smell. I am grateful to the fruit bats who pollinate them.

Tonight, the waning gibbous moon is high overhead. Ku Tsaka arrives with her eyes like emerald jewel flames. She circles my entire body, patting and caressing, then curls up inside me and sings me a lullaby, “World Kiss”:

The world is young,
our souls are free,
and we are finally ready
to fall in love again and again
every day and every way

So let’s fall in love
with this perfect moment
and this perfect place
with these perfect feelings
and our perfect fate

I love you
I love me
I love you and me together

I love us
I love them
I love us and them together