Morrigan strikes!

Now as it happens, I was walking along feeling a little bit less... discombobulated.

I started at the adorable Landmark Tree...

And, how cool is this, a rose, I think, is growing in the tree.

I had to climb on the fence to photograph it.

I started thinking about the branches - which is the exercise for this week's Tree of Life course. The branches being how our values spread into every aspect of our lives.

But when you look at this and other oak trees, like this one...

You start to see them as tributaries of rivers, capillaries and arteries, alveoli in lungs, neural networks... Fractal patterns. There are some vaguely interesting videos on YouTube... this one is OK, though the voice is a little annoying. The images are very good.

Anyway, I was feeling a little guilty as I had left volunteering early due to my Serie A commitments. And actually I had a lot to do but I needed air and trees and to hear the birds. Even so, I was feeling bad - although I had done all I had to do. As well as what I was meant to do the following week.

Well, and what I thought as I listened to and watched small birds and wondered at fractal trees was this, "This IS my one wild and precious life! I have to live it!" And yes, I am referring to the incredible Mary Oliver poem.

Then I just stood still.

And I could hear... something. In the hedge. It sounded like a... badger walking through the scrub. My attention was drawn. What was it?

That's when I saw this.

It was the strangest thing. A sound with no real cause drawing me to death.

I couldn't work out what it was until I went around the hedge and crawled through to get closer. I think it was a young deer. Or maybe a hare. But it tried to jump through the fence and got stuck. It either starved to death or was killed.

A fence = a trap.

Then you look at a tree.

Another vast oak. Maybe a lightning strike. The two halves pulling away and yet held together. And that dead section rises all the way to the crown.

Are there dead branches in my life? Maybe Crone-as-horsewoman. Any yet I still hold up the values?

My wild and precious life - with its living branches and its dead ones. The lightning strikes that tear me apart. The strength that holds me together.

And friends. We all need them. Even trees.

Ian Hilbert knew I'd love these pictures - and I do! Thank you!