Ignorant Tutor took leave of the many-faced gods and goddesses of Mount Allay Alloy and exhaled her purple breath, "This will reveal a path for me along the mountain slopes." Full of heady nectar and eager to return home, she swiftly angled her civet body between stump and boulder, through schism, and across chasm, paying heed only to speed and not to any signs of other travellers.
The side of the mountain was awash with rare natures. Each increment of elevation held a new rich tiered wonder - here a copse of wild ancient tea, there above a spray of crescent moon flowers, below a hidden pool of floating cabbage. Great margins of clouds grew around the peaks, while sinuous winding pools reflected the blemishless sky. It was a ripe forest garden where the soil rose up to meet the all-nourishing sun in the shape of philosophical rock and twisting stem. It was a place unlike any a mortal has ever beheld.
Atop an ancient medlar, there was a yellow leaf on the fourth branch from the ground, the second branch from the top, that was facing the setting sun. Each day it subtly angled itself to filter the thin air and catch the high sunlight. Today it turned itself earthwards to hail the arrival of that being who bridges animate and inanimate, solid and immaterial.
For amongst this same beauty, the Madame of the Forests, in the guise of the holy shrub, was disporting herself atop her changing beast, in a pot, along the ridges of Allay Alloy. The pot was of the thinnest porcelain, a barrier that did not so much separate her from the world as generate the longing of oneness that united her with it. As the sun shone behind her, the Madame's many branches spread out like so many serpents. The mountain breeze rustled her leaves until they hissed like the tongues of many serpents. Her changing beast looked about as fearsome as they come. The charismatic vehicle had the trunk of an elephant, the horns of a bull, the fangs of a tiger, the ears of a rat, the neck of a python, the body of a dragon, feathers like a hummingbird, a scorpion's tail. Each attribute shifted with every movement of muscle and light.
It's rat ears twitched to say hark, something approaches. This splendid beast stopped and snorted in forewarning, but the civet was all speed and no caution. In a sudden crash, the tree feline collided with the changing beast. The holy shrub's many arms cast their snakey shadows on the rear curtains of the civet's eyes, the leaf tongues shook in fright, thick with rustling. Startled by such a terrifying collision, the haughty child-brained Tutor was ready to clash with this would-be hydra. Pulling a wooden tube from her belt, the civet called forth a retinue of chomping insects, uncorking them to confront her alarm.
"Magical flying friends, set this right with your bite! I set beetle-wasp against asp. Do your biting and my bidding, which are the same!"
To defend the Madame's lush growth, her vehicle changed itself into a great fortress of rock that enveloped her pot to pinnacle.
Unperturbed by the sudden transformation, the haughty civet rushed snoutlong into changing beast fortress, following her onrushing band of insects. Dashing down the steaming hallway, she stopped only to examine a precious box, grabbing it without a thought, her paws reflexively rapacious. In the backmost chamber stood the holy shrub, aghast at the small animal's outsized greed, temper, and rage.
Seeing her doom in the civet's eyes, Madame began to pray.
Out of the mindful hoop, I became a conk in the fire.
Over the floating world, I became samphire in the swell.
Through the sinking swirl, I was flower, fly, fruit, frog.
Flowing and foaming on and under and in the river,
I mauraded, I fell, I mourned, I exulted.
Then I touched the cloud at the terminus:
I cut the old mountain.
After green recedes,
The once opaque lake becomes clear:
I am the eternal ephemeral.
And lo the hoard of caustic insects defoliated the Madame of the Forests in a flash, tragically and foolishing, whereupon a gelid wind brushed its fingers across the Ignorant Tutor's back, the dying changing beast's body ceased to be a solid fortress and curled up tight around the sacred plant. The holy shrub shook in violent shock, nearly uprooting itself.
"And that's what you get for scaring an innocent creature like me."
The insects stopped swarming and turned purple with a sudden sickness - the once sweet holy leaves had turned into the bitterest herb in their guts. The six-legged attackers tried to disgorge the bitter poison to no avail, and they all perished from the force of its flavor.
In the resulting stillness, the civet saw the plant was just an innocent shrub with twisting twigs, her insects were dead or twitching closer to it, and the imposing beast a faithful sacred chimera in its death throes.
"O Lady Plant, whom I mistook for a foul serpent demon, I have tread harshly on you — although I should say you ought to watch where you're going on these mountains where I disport and make my joy — but please let me cut these chitinous offenders open and exhume your tender leaf parts from their bellies. I can reattach your greenery, I don't mind at all! I have divers magics at my claws' disposal. I will make it right by my troth and front tooth."
But it was too late to put green back.
"Fiendish cat thing, desecrating your dead comrades is not worth doubling your dishonor: it is no remedy for your mortal offense. Your minions have perished and become mine."
The grasses around the fallen warriors grew long and wove themselves into a basket.
"Your comrades are sacred herbs now. My death is on your celestial rap sheet, civet! My faithful beast's heart is in your pocket."
At that the mother shrub withered, shrivelled, and cracked. Dessication spread, turning the guarding beast into stone, the mountain's trees into dry rotting tinder, all its grasses into dust, the very ground under the civet's feet writhed itself dry.
The montane forest animals had no warning, the devestation rushed past them, leaving them exposed in a denuded harsh landscape. Fanged deer stood dazed. Monkeys fell from the air where their trees used to stand. Tigers in their den exposed a tender flank to the breached sky. Prey and predator alike fled all at once out of fear and shame.
The desolation revealed skeletons of ancient terrace gardens, temple ruins of bygone mountain people, and a luminous patch of the sky.
A dry west wind blew, and the Meditation God made himself visible, a vermillion cloud forming itself all powerful before the petulant tree cat. It is like the poem goes:
Meditation is appearing!
It wears on its shoulders
A robe of night indigo.
A mugwort leaf pattern
Shimmers in crimson red.
It wears on its head
The face of child born at noon.
Looking placidly upon mounded earth
Is a countenance of the fullest moon.
"It seems the mother has become the daughter. Yes, the Madame has reentered rebirth, her essence flowing into a fresh herbage, but she is sorely missed and surely lost! Where, oh where could she be? What leaf could she now be? What fiend has sown her so cruelly?"
Hearing the booming meditation god's voice, which was truly just a whisper by that vast one, the civet darted under a rock. Her luxurious tail of golden brown fur twitched in full view on the barren mountainside.
"You there! Her ending will be your mending."
Civet shivered, pulling her tail under the rock with her.
"Oh, that you never climbed down from your tree, you miserable waif! That shrub was holier than holy - the life of green living. My humble acolytes and lofty companions rely on her for their intellectual stimulation, celestial nourishment, and the slaking of their mental thirst."
"Very well, I will look about and call her. She cannot have gotten far. Oh Miss Plant!"
The civet got up and made to leave. Thinking herself rather sly, she rushed off in the opposite direction. When she had run out of breath, she looked behind to find the Meditation God and did not. Making to flee from the intractable situation further still, she continued on her way until stubbing her paw.
"What a wretched hard rock that is!" she wailed.
"That's not a rock, cunning civet. That is the Madame's glatisant beast."
Turning around, she saw the Meditation God standing before her unperturbed. She forgot her foot and looked around. Miraculously, she was back where she had started.
The pillar of calm stood in the civet's way, stopping her from running off again.
"As you can see this mountain is lush no more. The Plant's five souls are now fractionated essences drifting through the floating world. As phases, they have been pulverized under the wheel, reformulated and soon to reflourish."
"This is what you will do. Depart this wasteland of your own making and tread carefully into the world forest below. The Madame of Plants could be leprous lichen growing on peak of the tallest mountain many days journey due east, a clutch of swaying wrack at the bottom of a black sea far to the purple south, a small onion next to a noodling creek in the blue northwest, a blade of grass in the middle of an airy prairie out grey west, or moss hanging from a hoary pillar tree at the edge of the world — pick a direction and go. Wherever she is, you will find the reborn Madame of the Leaves. When you find her, make amends with her incarnation and kindly ask her for a cutting to bring back here. Now go."
"I would gladly yet, but how will I know her? You said yourself she is much changed, a newborn sprout in a thicket of everchanging variety. And the world is quite large and strange to me."
"You must use your taste to discover her. For this is what the All Herb tastes like in every incarnation:
Warming without heat, cooling without cold.
For the devout, no matter how long she is boiled, she will never grow bitter.
Her liquor tastes of petrichor dipped in fresh blue-green water.
Her long hair wafts for many leagues as fine charcoal hay.
She leaves long clarity and a calming sediment.
If an impure mind smells her, she will invoke fainting.
If an avaricious soul plucks her, she will itch ceaselessly.
If cynic tastes her, she will be unbearably bitter.
If gourmand chews her, she will break teeth.
If the simple steeps her, she purifies the water and the water purifies her."
The civet, whose body loathed the stillness of contemplation and whose will shirked all notions of service, replied, "While that sounds like a very interesting leaf, immensely kind and all-knowing guide, and I must say you probably have excellent taste when it comes to this sort of thing, but my palate is quite rudimentary. I am accustomed to fatty meat and sour wine. I would never be able to detect such subtleties in a raw leaf."
"Take care and recite this blessing before you taste an unknown herb, lest you suffer the fate of your insects:
Favor me with your flavor.
Save me with your savor.
The small blessing will make you known to her and assist you in your discerning. When you go about your tasting, try only a little of each plant. I know an eager and energetic beast like you could strip an entire forest of its leaves purely out of careless haste. "
"Unfortunately, as a greedy hungry kitten, I sipped my soup too quickly and burned my tongue."
"Then, Civet, you must learn to taste the world not through the senses, but through the mind."
"That's all well and good, I'm certain I could figure that out easily, but I've also heard from the swiddeners and foragers that the forest is full of poisonous herbs, leaves that make you downright sick, hidden thorns that can puncture you right through the lung, sweet looking fruit that tastes quite foul, and tubers hard enough to break your teeth. Surely this poses an unsolveable problem. Although I would gladly do it in an instant out of devotion for you, perhaps I am not well suited to this task. I know you have many a qualified and worldly worshipper you could pick from."
"Your thoughtfulness does not go unnoticed, little tree cat. But your actions have recommended you for this task and I have decided upon you, so I will protect you and instruct you. I will wrap your throat with a prayer. No poison can travel through it, this thin circlet removes all poison as it passes through."
Then the Meditation God began to intone:
"With poignant palate,
Sweet and sour, tart and treacly
Let no poison pass.
Let this be your potting up.
"Incidentally, the circle works on poison in both directions."
Feeling the snugness of the band now around her neck, the civet fell to the ground and plead, "Oh, Mighty and Grand Vision, I am but a humble devotee of yours! I am so low in your limitless pool of underlings that spans beyond the horizon. I barely know how to close my eyes and sit still, let alone invoke your many names. This gift is far too precious for someone as pathetic and useless as myself. I could never imagine accepting such a lofty gift."
"Stop your fretting, little oaf - While you are being more honest than you know, it is a mere trifle. It only looks precious - just some gold leaf wrapped around an little incantation of mine.
"What's more, I am not done heaping gifts upon you:
"You will learn the power of hiding something and letting it ferment in itself.
"Take this basket. The insect herbs inside have magic to revive the mortal dead. The heart of the All Herb's beast that is in your pocket is also your burden to bear."
Her collar (for that's what it was) tightened around her neck as she set off down the bleak mountainside. She fiddled with the heart bead and thought of ways to get out of sudden divine servitude.
Stopping to look in the grass basket, the civet mumbled to herself, "Well look at that, a stalk of fruit is growing from their heads. That plant queen sure did a number on them. They deserved it for not finishing the job."
"Say, what's that basket? It's new," something buzzed from the civet's waist.
The civet turned to a buzzing coming from the wood tube that formerly held her small army. "What is this? A laggard? A duty shirker?" she thought.
It was a single straggling insect. It did not wait for a reply, saying, "Hi-ho. That basket looks heavy."
"Oh this? We're on quite a long journey, so, of course that's just civet snacks for my lunch!" Immediately following this half truth, the circlet around her neck began to glow and became slightly hot.
"By the way," yawning, the beetle-wasp crawled out and continued, "where have my brethren gone?"
Thinking to herself that while all its brethren were leafmeal, a slothful insect can still sting harshly, and the band around her neck could grow much hotter, she dissembled, "They have gone on an errand for the Madame of the Forest."
"I always knew they were devotees, but that is quite a meritous deed for that lot!"
"We all became very important while you slept. I have been given a very important task by the lofty and venerable Meditation God, but I will need your help, so it's good you were able to rest."