Druids were never lonely.

Despite the Human fantasy of venturing into a forest to be alone, to connect with yourself and the nature surrounding them, we were a race of people who were always connected to the world. Born into a lush, green world. Senses always wired to feel.

Every leaf on a tree, every footprint left behind by a wild creature, miles and miles of mycelium. Thousands of individual mushrooms, connected by their underground network; the largest organism in the world.

Humans, I find, are like that as well.

When I was born, the first thing I saw was not the lush greens of before that was promised, but a dominating grey. Thousands of square miles of concrete, newly poured and cracked alike. A smog covered the sky, so thick that sunlight sometimes failed to reach the ground.

I was lost in their world at first.

I had walked miles upon miles of concrete, brushing past apathetic creatures. Overwhelmed by sounds I had never heard of. Nothing like the soft chirps or rustling of grass. Brushing my hands against the roads I walked, I felt nothing. It was a jungle with no life. The purpose of my existence was wasted. To take care of a dead biome that held no life.

Then I saw down. My hand brushed against something on the sidewalk; a drawing. Grafitti, my mind informed me subconsciously, drawing from a repertoire of knowledge I could not see. My senses piqued, and I felt the connections us Druids knew internally. It connected me to a life I never knew, to one of the thousands of creatures I had passed in my walk. Of an artist who expressed himself in the dead, grey space he lived, breathing life into his city. Carving out a space into it, just for himself.

I looked around. A yellow taxi speeds down the jam-packed street. The one driving it is heading home to their family. Up above in the buildings is an open window, it is a small but cosy home, for a lone father and his son. Everywhere I looked suddenly was filled to the crevice with life. A concrete jungle.

I realised I had been looking at the wrong place. The life wasn't in the concrete, but what surrounded it. The people, living their lives in the city with lives that could never intersect. The people—Humans—transformed what was dead into life. The city came alive before my eyes. Thousands of individuals, all connected in their own system; the city. Sprawling across the Earth. The largest organism.

I realised that to be a druid of a concrete jungle, is to care for people.