Three: Past- Solar Minimum

I watch my parents head to the grove every morning from my hammock, far up into the flowers. I brush a dew soaked strand of hair away from my face as I watch them climb down the stems that make our home.

I see all the adults in our community file into the grove. They will return later, with peaceful expressions. My mother will climb up to me and ready me for school, where I will learn more about the forest and my future as one of its children.

I am always curious but hold it in most days. Yet at times I ask her, as she buttons up my collar, what happens in the Grove. I know what it is, our most holy place, so different from the sunflowers that always shelter us, I know Helianthus guided us to it many years ago, to worship him. But how?

And when I ask her this, she smiles, caresses my skin, my hair.

‘I was like you once, so curious. You will find out one day, when you are older and He calls you to duty, and it will be unlike anything you have ever seen. But until that day, you cannot know.’