A story. From a shamanistic tradition. That I just made up.

Based on a true story.

There was a child, who was learning to listen to Nature. And he (for this is based on a real story, and while a child in a story may be Child, this particular child was a Boy, who is a "he") was walking, and came to a patch of mushrooms.

And he considered the mushrooms, and wondered what they were for. So he asked Mother Nature what the mushrooms were for. And Mother Nature told him, "A gift of nourishment is here. Eat these mushrooms."

So he ate a mushroom.

Fortunately, this story is set in the Now, so when he got sick, he got to an emergency room, and they saved his life, and the gift wasn't given.

For a mushroom feeds on the death of animals and plants, and Nature values the human no more than It values the mushroom. The gift was there; he was the gift for the mushroom. When the human eats the mushroom, the mushroom eats the human, and Nature cares not which.

When you ask Nature, understand that it's not always about you.