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Branches and fruits

Writer's picture: CroneCrone

That hollow tree stuff - I mean about the danger of seeing ourselves reflected in the world and failing to value the world as the thing itself - has continued to weigh upon me.


I brought it up in the course and though I don't think I expressed myself as I wanted to, there were two suggestions from the tutors. Stephan said there is a different FEEL when you are projecting from when you are 'meeting' the other. Per Ingvar said that what experience is is the 'space in between'. I like this. It relates to Winnicott's view of psychology, which I have written about before. In fact, this blog post is a great way to approach the view taken by Per Ingvar.


What they are stressing, then, is interconnection. What I am railing against is the absorption of world into self. I want to feel part of everything, not as if I am a sort of prism of everything... or that everything is a prism of me... or whatever.


Anyhow, the exercise for next week is to express, for five minutes, what the course has brought forth in us.


I figured that I have two poems already - on the roots and the trunk... which I maybe have not posted here yet... so I shall now:


Trunk routes


This time is all brittle and corrugated.

No wonder -

we all need armour these days.

(And yet!

Which others offer such artistry

of platings, gorges, bands, and lenticels!)

But, back in the day, beyond the growings

and flowings of sugar sap downwards,

near the heart of things,

a river runs upwards.


Mountains of wood scaled by a stream

of inside deep time currents.


The push and the pull of it;

the seep and the suck of it.

Sweet water rising

from the cavernous deeps

to the green blue highs.


All I needed was two more, on branches and fruits. So, I have made a start. And probably this start is as far as I will go.


Branching out


It’s more exploration than action:

a questioning testing of situation,

fuelled by experience, channelled by commitment,

and always led, by wonder, to seek the light.


I become the record of my reaching:

all searching made manifest in wood.

Those quests that fail may leave lasting legacies;

Those that succeed, sustain me.


Bearing fruits


Trees remind me that not all actions bear fruit.

There’s the reliance on wind or bee,

bat or moth; intricate relationships that

can collapse.


(Our flying friends have flown.)


Not all seeds take root.

Not all saplings survive.

A low odds lottery.

Trees respond with excess.


Yet trees also remind me that life is

never

an independent pursuit.

Trees supports and are supported.


The word for tree is world –

a world where

benevolence

can be

unlimited.


I told Dad about this and he said, :What about the leaves? You can't ignore the leaves."


Good point.


Green magic


In cellular laboratories

elemental alchemy:

light becomes life.


When green turns to gold, orange and red

the process of unleaving

fuels further chemistry:

litter becomes life.


I have also started a picture. In the tradition of my octopus-tree pictures.


Not sure that I have... fully absorbed what the course was intended to convey. I wanted, as I always do, to find my tribe and my guru. And, as I always do, I felt like I didn't fit. Then there's the battle in my mind about what that means. At first, I feel that I have seen a truer truth. Then I feel resentful. Why DON'T they see it like that? Then I feel stupid. I must be wrong. It's always the fucking same. EVERYTHING.


If you keep doing the same thing in the same way, you have to expect the same outcome.


The essence of idiocy or insanity is to expect a different outcome when you do the same thing.


But I think I am just going into a situation that seems to fit, to sit right with me, in the hope that I can align... Ah. There's the thing. I can never align.


As I have noticed repeatedly: every tree is unique. It is the one solution to this place and this time. You could not trace another tree onto it. Well, this is more true of wild grown trees than plantation pines and firs... and especially true of 'our' trees - the oak and the ash, the beech and the elm. And the black poplar, the sycamore, the chestnut. No tree will ever find its image. And nor will I.



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2 Comments


maplekey4
Mar 10, 2023

No two Snowflakes

are ever identical

but nevertheless

they align to the cloud

to the falling

to the ground

to the melting

to Spring


xx

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Crone
Crone
Mar 10, 2023
Replying to

OOOOOOHHHHHHHH!!!!! That is SO beautiful! Thank you!!!

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