This Friday begins with magnificent sunlight. Nature is our mother, the beginning and the ending of my/our individual stories.

This story penned by Nietzsche requires two movements. Tomorrow I will offer part 2. As you’ve noticed it’s a conversation between a young adult (male or female) and Zarathustra. “Zarathustra,” Nietzsche’s mouthpiece, is a mysterious wandering sage. Here he encounters this aspiring young adult seated, leaning against a tree. The youth as he recognizes Zarathustra, feels a jolt of anxiety. A conversation begins, which becomes more intimate, more candid with the back and forth shuttle of statement and reply.

The formatting is used to ease the transition between the two speakers.

Zarathustra, the wise man suggests there there is no need for fearful anxiety at the mere thought of him. Adding that all men/women are similar to that tall tree against which the youth leans. The tension of upward growth, a light-seeking up-reach, along with the downward thrust of roots, to go deeper for improved grip is normal. Roots go deep, into the dark, into what we regard as evil. Life is a necessary straining toward the good, and toward the evil.

The youth responds with the longest paragraph amounting to a personal confession of sorts.

Life as described here, is characterized as struggle. And for what?

Is all of it, – but that long wait for the lightning?!

Well enjoy!

…the youth arose disconcerted, and said:
“I hear Zarathustra, and just now was I thinking of him!”

Zarathustra answered:
“Why are you frightened on that account?
— But it is the same with man
as with the tree.

The more he seeks to rise into the height and light,
the more vigorously do his roots struggle earthward,
downward, into the dark and deep – into the evil.”

“Yes, into the evil!” cried the youth.
“How is it possible that you have
discovered my soul?”

Zarathustra smiled, and said:
“Many a soul one will never discover,
unless one first invent it.”

“Yes, into the evil!” cried the youth once more.
“you said the truth, Zarathustra. I trust myself no longer
since I sought to rise into the height,
and nobody trusts me any longer;
how does that happen?
I change too quickly: my to-day refutes my yesterday.
I often overleap the steps when I clamber;
for so doing, none of the steps pardons me.
When aloft, I find myself always alone.
No one speaks to me;
the frost of solitude makes me tremble.
What do I seek on the height?
My contempt and my longing increase together;
the higher I clamber,
the more do I despise him who clambers.
What does he seek on the height?
How ashamed I am of my clambering and stumbling!
How I mock at my violent panting!
How I hate him who flies!
How tired I am
on the height!”

Here the youth was silent.

And Zarathustra contemplated the tree beside
which they stood, and spoke thus:
“This tree stands lonely here on the hills;
it has grown up high above man and beast.

And if it wanted to speak,
it would have none who could understand it: so high has it grown.
Now it waits and waits,
— for what does it wait?

It dwells too close
To the seat of the clouds;
it waits perhaps for the first lightning?”

When Zarathustra had said this,
the youth called out with violent gestures:
“Yes, Zarathustra, you speak the truth.
My destruction I longed for,
when I desired to be on the height,
and you are the lightning for which I waited!

Behold, what have I been
since you have appeared among us?
It is my envy of you that has destroyed me!”
— Thus spoke the youth, and wept bitterly.

Zarathustra, however, put his arm about him,
and led the youth away with him.

Thus Spake Zarathustra, by Friedrich Nietzsche, Trans. by Thomas Common, The Tree on the Hill, No. 8

Wait! Wait! There’s no need to leave without a tune. This one is famed for stupendous guitar riffs: Smoke On the Water by Deep Purple.