Back to the Beeches

This trip - to avoid the road that killed Simba (the new car is not Aulus... so far it is No Name) - was all about The Horned One and about death.

What an incredible monument. Who could sculpt, ever, something so powerful as this?

I think it was a beech, like the one supported by struts on the front page. But I can't be sure.

This time, I took a different route, spoke to some people, saw a deer flash by in my peripheral vision, watched crows and followed my nose. Came upon this.

I was seeking, as I am always seeking, a relationship, a sense of connection. The tree, so old, so... so much in the process of recession... was quiet. But I sensed the King Stag. I sensed the incredible creativity and artistry of dying and aging - how counterintuitive! I sensed a need to... create... to keep creating during the corrosive period of decline. I sensed the vitality of the swirl and the fold. The strength of the embrace and the hold. And the absence within that allows the forms to be seen. It is the breaking open that releases the essence.

It's all about what you do with your dying.

And here, in this tree, the face of the Green Man. Who laughs in the face of death because all death is a beginning.