A tale of fantasy and everyday life in which you may recognise yourself.
Read: 6 minutes // Listen: 11 minutes
Once upon a time, not so long ago, an envelope clinks through my letterbox.
It lands upright, caught in a crack between my floorboards.
There is no stamp or address. There is no postmark. Only my name in elegant, green script.
Inside, I find an invitation, engraved in gold on heavy card.
You are invited to brunch.
Sunday. 11 o’clock.
Come exactly as you are.
Everything you need will be waiting.
—O
There is also a small hand-drawn map with directions to the middle of the top field.
I’m not in the habit of accepting anonymous invitations.
But I have learned to trust my intuition deeply and, as a result, have spent the last eight months doing considerably stranger things.
In that moment, I decide to go. I hope you’ll come with me.
The heavy metal gate feels the same in my hand as we step across its threshold into the Windsor Great Park. I have done this countless times before.
This time though, it feels different. Somewhere slightly left of ordinary.
Together, we follow the path to the top field.
There, in the middle, is an impressive ancient oak. Underneath the oak is a table, long and elegantly set. The oak canopy is high enough and wide enough to cast shade and some welcome coolness over us.
You and I walk around the table. It is dressed in white linen scattered with wildflowers. Beige napkins are tied with strands of wheat. There is old silver cutlery, as mismatched and charming as the porcelain dishes. Crystal glasses sparkle like sunshine.
Five places are set. We find our names and our chairs.
Before we can sit, I see something very small and shimmering purple land — plop! — inside one of the small bowls.
I lean over to inspect it when... CLICK!
It catapults suddenly into the air with a flip before landing feet first.
“Hi, I’m Violet!” she says in a small but confident voice.
“Because you’re purple?” I ask.
“No,” she says. “Because that’s my name.”
She looks slightly offended as she waves her antennae at me.
Before I can apologise, there is a loud caw-cackle overhead. The branches rustle and move. A very large bird descends from above. He lands on one of the chairs, black feathers shining.
“Kraa! I’m Jack! Took you long enough. I’ve been waiting…” he says ruffling his wings.
In the distance, I hear a dog bark. A plane flies high overhead, moving away from Heathrow.
I glance at you and…you look as confused as I feel.
Slowly, tentatively, a muntjac deer steps out from behind the oak on tiny feet.
I smile. The deer is so small, it only comes to my knee. “Well, hello,” I say.
“Please call me Sage,” it says softly. “It looks like our group is complete now.”
A strong wind gusts suddenly, blowing my hair across my eyes. When I push it away, I see the table is suddenly filled with food. White candles in the candelabra are lit and dancing in the breeze. I smell strong coffee. My plate is filled with pancakes, dripping with maple syrup and berries. My stomach gurgles.
Next to me, I see Sage’s bowl is full of leaves, honeysuckle flowers, mushrooms, acorns, berries and brambles.
Across the table, Jack’s plate holds a suet ball pressed with a strange mix of seeds, nuts and berries. He flutter-hops to perch on the edge of his plate.
Violet has a tiny silver plate. On it is a pool of nectar surrounded by damp wood mould and decaying leaves.
“Oh, my favourite,” she trills and starts to eat.
Jack steals a fat acorn from Sage’s plate and cackles to himself.
Sage eats slowly and delicately. She looks around as she chews each mouthful.
My pancakes are the best I’ve ever had. Perhaps it’s eating outdoors. Perhaps it’s the company. Perhaps it’s something else.
I look across at you eating with obvious enjoyment.
“So…where is our host?” I ask. “Does anyone know O?”
Jack ruffles his feathers. “O must be a bird,” he says. “My invitation was waiting for me at the top of my tree.”
Violet waves her antennae vigorously. “That is ridiculous! My invitation was delivered deep inside my tree home. Where no bird could fit.”
“Mine was stuck in my favourite bramble bush. Perhaps,” Sage offers, “Our invitations arrived in a way that was perfect for each of us.”
“So why here?” you ask. “Why are we eating here under this Oak?”
“Because of the Oak, obviously,” says Violet.
“What do you mean?” asks Jack. “What does the oak have to do with this?”
Violet looks at him as though he has sprouted feathers for brains.
“Any ancient tree is an entire world. Inside there are tunnels and hollows, damp wood mould and decaying leaves, places to hide and places to feed. Generations can live inside one tree.”
Jack caw-cackles loudly. “Ha ho! That's not an Oak! An Oak is branches and leaves and sky. From the top of my tree home, I can see all the way across the Park to Windsor Castle. And I can feel the weather shift as it rolls in.”
Sage looks up from her brambles. “You're both missing it.”
“Missing what?” Jack asks.
“The Oak is shelter. It's the cool earth beneath the canopy. The roots. The acorns. The paths around it. The smell after rain.”
Having spent most of this year studying ancient oaks, I'm rather pleased to know the answer. “Actually, oaks belong to the genus Quercus. They can live for more than a thousand years. Some of the oaks in this park were already ancient before any of us were born.”
There is a deep silence.
You smirk. The other three stare at me.
Jack caw-cackles again. “Ah, humans!”
Over our heads, the branches shift and sway. A thin shaft of sunlight appears and shines down onto the invitation lying on the table.
I pick it up and turn it over. There, pressed into the cardstock, is the same single letter. O.
I look at the invitation and then up at the tree. “Oh….” I say.
You see it too.
O. Oak.
In all of our arguing about what an oak is, none of us had actually been looking at the Oak.
You look around.
Jack looks down at the roots.
Sage looks up to the canopy.
Violet looks out across the landscape.
I forget the science and my analysis and everything I know. I simply receive.
The Oak hasn’t changed. But somehow, we all feel more of it.
Of course, I didn't really have brunch with a violet click beetle, a jackdaw and a muntjac deer on Sunday.
Once a letter did come through my postbox to lodge itself upright in my floorboards.
And there is an ancient oak in the middle of the top field. It has hollows and cracks where the jackdaws do nest.
Its canopy is high enough that, from the top, you would be able to see across to Windsor Castle.
This is The Focusing Oak. It may not have invited me to brunch, but it did share this:
You don’t have to wait for an invitation to arrive.
There is always an invitation waiting for you to receive it.
Simply shifting your focus to receiving this invitation is enough to expand your capacity in living life fully.
It is easy to become so focused on what we can see from where we stand that we mistake “what we see” for “all there is.”
Our focus can narrow further when we are under pressure, in uncertainty, or when stepping into the unknown.
Expanding capacity doesn't always begin with doing more.
Or forcing yourself to think differently.
Nor does it require pretending something difficult isn't difficult.
Sometimes it begins with the smallest shift of focus.
By loosening your grip on the certainty that what you currently see is all there is. By becoming available to what else is also present.
Where in your life have you become so focused on what you can see that you may have stopped noticing what else is available?
What might be invisible from where you currently stand?
What invitation might already be waiting for you to receive it?
Now, I have an invitation for you.
On 17 September, I'm opening the field for us to explore this together.
Stand in the Field is a free live experience exploring what becomes possible when we change where we stand.
Because where we stand changes what we see.
What we see changes what we can hold.
What we can hold changes our capacity to participate with what life is asking of us.
And from there, different possibilities become available.
Thursday 17 September | 4pm UK | Live on Zoom | Free
Come exactly as you are.