James the Destroyer

There once lived a mighty tree on top of a grand hill overlooking a large and sprawling jungle. The tree had fallen on top of the hill as a young acorn. For the early part of his life, the tree had to fight against the rocky soil on the top of the hill for his roots to take hold. Then the tree had to fight against the other tall trees of the jungle that surrounded his hill for sunlight. Because this was an unfamiliar and strange landscape for the tree, the jungle was ruthless and tried to choke out the tree. In the end the tree emerged and overlooked all of the jungle that surrounded the hill.

One day, a peaceful botanist was roaming the jungle in search of any exotic plant life to study for his research. He came across the mighty tree on the hill and was instantly fascinated by it. He wondered how such a beautiful tree could survive in such a harsh environment. He set up camp and studied the tree for several days before he had to depart back to his home.

The trees and plants of the jungle became jealous of the tree. Why should such an ordinary tree receive such praise just for the location of its emergence? Those of the jungle then slowly crept up the hill until they were touching the mighty tree. Vines wrapped around the trunk of the tree trying to suffocate its roots. After a year of fighting for the nutrients of the soil, the vines outnumbered the tree by so much that they choked and killed it. All that was left was a few of the acorns that the tree had left behind.

Soon after the jungle killed it the curious botanist came back searching for his lovely tree. When he found the hill of the tree he became furious. He stared at the corpse of the rotting tree as he clutched the acorns he found near the base of the trunk. He could see that the vines and trees of the jungle were responsible for this tragedy. He took the next several days to build a gigantic pile of wood and dead plant life. He set the pile ablaze and burned down the entire jungle that had surrounded his precious tree. Years later, when the ash had blown away and the dust had settled, he returned to the hill and planted the acorns he had found. A large sprawling forest would emerge with hundreds of thousands of identical trees to the tree the lonely botanist had loved.

Author's note: This story represents the destructive characteristics of Shiva. In the original story, Sati is the youngest daughter of Daksha who eventually marries Shiva. Before they are married, Daksha constantly tries to keep Shiva from being with Sati. One day, Daksha has a great horse sacrifice and invites everyone except for Shiva and Sati. Sati attends anyways and her father insults her. In reaction to being insulted Sati sets herself in fire, killing herself. Once Shiva hears of this he sends his avatar Virabhadra to go and destroy Daksha for what he has done. This is supposed to relate to James as he was being insulted by people that were reading his website. Where he differs from Shiva, however, is that instead of physically destroying the people saying terrible things, he destroys the meaning that they have in his life. The tree in this story represents Sati. Much like Sati was treated poorly by her father, the tree grew up being choked by the jungle. Shiva represents the botanist. At the beginning of the story he is very calm and in awe of the tree. but his anger comes out as he destroys the evil jungle in a giant blaze of fire. The fire is also a nod to the fire in the story when Sati sets herself ablaze .This story might seem to be obviously depicting James's predicament but this has a purpose. James wants to directly connect this story to himself in order to emotionally free himself from the pain he felt from the hate mail he received. He snuck a representation of himself at the beginning of the story by depicting the acorn growing up from nothing.

Bibliography: Myths of the Hindus and Buddhists. Sister Nivedita. The Anger of Shiva

Image: Virabhadra and Daksha. Wikipedia

Header Image: Photo by Simson Petrol on Unsplash