Normally we are not so inclined as to explain ourselves, but if we are to make our message clear it seems imperative that we make ourselves make sense to those who are detached from the World of Tree. And to make it make sense, to tell you our ending, we must take you back to our beginning.
When Tree was born, that young sapling still too small to reach and grab at the sky, their Star-Kin worried greatly for its future. They had seen what their tears had done for their lost star-sibling when they watched the starborn sprout emerge from rocky earth, but they also saw how vulnerable Young Tree was as a seedling. Having felt so uncertain about how the star-sprout could live on the terrestrial surface, the sky-dwelling stars decided to shape their uncertainty into story. So, for the first few nights of Tree's seedling life, the stars were whispering, speaking, singing all the tales that they knew. It was from these stellar murmurings that Tree's first knot grew: when the stories had given enough sustenance for the seedling that it could subsist on its own, it became ready to shed one of its young branches. When this limb fell to the ground, it left a kind of hole in its place. You've probably seen these spaces in tree-bark before, round and both bulbous and concave like scar tissue. This early knot in Tree's bark left a hospitable gap for new growth. What grew out of this gap was born from the gap itself and from the stories of the stars above: the words mingling with the open space. What emerged from the ebb and flow of open and filled air was a new kind of being, a hybrid of the Earthly Tree and the Stars: this was the birth of the world's first bird, we now call their kin Starlings.
When the stars witnessed the breaking into the world of this child of land and sky, they realized that their role in Tree's life would no longer be active or interactive, that Tree had a new companion to watch over them, a new life in the young world. The stars became distant relatives, only greeted every once in a while when custom or circumstances require it. Since this birth, there has always been a companion to Tree, and while we call ourselves Caretakers, we are also Carereceivers. Our life, breath, being came from Tree and Stars, and so when we give care to Tree we are also giving care to ourselves. This is why Tree helps us to be reborn into new forms: each of our bodies is given back to Tree when the stars are right, but when we leave our bodies we are born again through plant matter. When we lie down for the last time, the Tree also gives birth to a new Caretaker, who will in turn be reunited and remingled with Tree and will reemerge in plant form, so that the next Caretaker can come along and tell the story of they who came before.
It may seem strange that Tree should have the ability to create two new forms at once: that Tree could aid one Caretaker's transformation into plant form while also birthing the next. And your confusion at this imbalance would be justified: there is a certain amount of excess that arises from each new instantiation. Such is the process of creation. However, such a creation is unsustainable for Tree; soon a limit to its output will be reached, unless new input is received. That is why Caretakers tell stories, we are really telling them all to Tree. But the stories came from Tree also, and so our concern remains. Tree needs new stories, new songs, new care.