The Ancient One

I have mentioned before the very very old oak who has lost most of his crown? Well, I felt drawn to visit.

While I was there, I had this strong sense of life as world-making... that as one lives (especially if one is a plant), one makes the world more habitable through one's actions. Trees offer a model of world-making to create the conditions for life. And this tree had an owl or raptor who regularly perched on a branch (and if an owl, maybe nested in a hole). there was a vast pile of pellets at the base of the tree, filled with fur and tiny bones. Consider: the shrew's life makes the world more habitable for owls. Rabbits had dug burrows between the roots. Birds foraged in the branches. The bark was covered with lichens. Grass was growing up in the broken saddle of the tree. A bee buzzed through the fallen leaves, occasionally burying herself. Flies sunned themselves on the trunk.

The fallen branches supported mosses and who knows how many small creatures.

The tree has made a world.