Hugged by trees

In perfection of harmony these old trees judge not.  Still and quiet and peaceful they stand, teaching one more lesson.

Their randomly tangled limbs, reaching this way and that, reveal life reaching, life reaching in every direction.

These limbs could be our lives, our lives every bit as crooked and tangled in their blind reaching for the Light.....but unlike our fading past and hidden future, in the trees’ branches that groping life-path is documented, each twist and change of direction and simultaneous growth in multiple directions all there to be seen, an entire life history sculpted through, and suspended in, thin air.

Might our lives not look similar could we see them in their entirety, from beginning to end, our growing roots reaching into the earth, our roots extending around the boulders and bedrock of constraints and barriers and setbacks, our roots extending into the world seeking sustenance in careers and crops and

Perceiving Purpose

On yesterday’s hike I was entranced by the wall of trees blanketing the opposite canyon wall.  I marveled at the intricate network of branches on trees on this side of the canyon.

Today I recognize that there before me was displayed a model representing all existence.  Each tree symbolizes a universe.  The chaos of branches and roots represents exploration in every possible direction, seemingly random and chaotic exploration, exploring every life-form, every geologic form, every stellar form, every planetary form.

In the tree, formed out of the roiling, random chaos of branches reaching this way and that, appears an unambiguous direction of growth, always up, always toward the sun......but this general direction of growth, the reaching down for water and up for sun, is indiscernible if looking too closely at only one or two or three knotted roots and twisted branches. 

Underlying the random chaos of the branches is the structure of DNA, for a living entity analogous to the laws of physics for a universe.  From tree to tree, and