I keep noticing how trees look like giant bird legs when their roots are exposed. Don't know how I came to that observation but now I find myself looking a lot at the bases of trees to see how their roots look. To another tree I might be seen as some kind of pervert but I'm gone too fast for them to stop me. "NO-O-O-O-O!!" the cedar screamed, but the big creepy man was gone in the blink of a stoma....

But when I looked up I saw how the tree was planted about 2 feet from the corner of the garage and just like the ones that used to grow out front, this tree would have to go. But truthfully, it's just that if it grows too much more it will threaten the integrity of that corner. So something had to be done. I got the idea of trimming the top just below the corner of the roof and then the tree would likely begin growing more sideways, maybe make a nice screen... But then, when you think of that living being with it's most lately created, youngest, and highest of it's being suddenly clipped off, for what reason these new cells are consigned to the burn heap? Why, to make a screen for that perverted creepy thing!

But bonsai is like that in spades. And actually, I like trimming trees to make new shapes. Topiary creates new things, especially when I apply masks and other parts. But still, how they fight back, with thorns and broken stems, leaf dust even. But in the end I clip where I want and they grow pretty much how I want. I'm glad I can't hear the voice of the dryad involved, but there must be one, for all living things have spirit. Tradition for me anyway, is that dryad is the name for tree spirit. So that dryad had better be an art lover and I better be careful not to kill the tree! Otherwise, every time I walked past a tree, it would reach for me and try to scratch me. And rightly so! I ought to do better than that. I am, after all, the peak of creation, bar One. And said in a humble and not-at-all bragging thought, but really, at some level I Must be the highest, even if down here at this level I am nowhere near and I screw up all the time. This time I am right. If I trim that tree right about there it will be able to grow a truncated kind of life, but better than being turned into the leg of a table, just because it's root ball looks just like the leg of a giant bird.

That bird could be all of Creation, and all we see are the legs here and there as She walks through the shallow Waters of Existence. She'd be the Great Stork and we would worship Her by leaving fish guts in shallow waters near Her nests. As long as the bass hold out there is fecundity for all.
We'd see the whole Dance as trees growing. You gotta think about: those trees don't stop. Out there at the ends of the stems there are openings where the air comes in and mixes it up with the water inside to produce more cells and advance the hole. Now and then they build big solar panels to power the whole thing. But now and then a whole People go missing and growth is changed, they lose their direction and begin growing to the left and right and doing both badly badly, not like the original Plan. Even the Roots send less and less water. There are scars that never heal. And that creepy pervert walks by and plays with the Roots, dumping decaying fish among the First Roots to further humiliate us all. Still, somehow we find a way to build and expand the Tree, even as the wounds heal. We like to think that there is a Plan somewhere, a reason for all these changes we go through.

He Who Clips is just so damn fast, we can never get a real good glimpse of what it is that drives Him. Through the Net we know that others, sometimes entire nations, have been clipped and most often, burned. It is the Way of Life. We make our offerings to Earth each time a Clipping is perceived and Acknowledged.

But, let's face it. There are those who do quite well while others are being clipped. There are those who even prosper while others die. Accidents happen and Fate is sometimes strange, but it grinds me that sometimes others do so very well, often forcing other living beings to live in the shadows of their prosperity. Still, the parasites continue, decay and growth somehow balance, and sometimes those big bushy clusters are the next to go when another clipping comes. And the clippings never stop. We know that trees and shrubs and even mushrooms have all been here before and will likely spring up again somewhere, some time. There's a time to grow, a time to decay and even a time to burn. Every time we eat or even breathe, we take in some of those who have been before. We should remember that, and remember too that no matter who we were, or how great we became, in the end we all go back to Mother Earth. Even Mother Earth burns at the end. Science tells us that and so does Religion. So it must be true. But too, all fires go out some time and the rains come, the earth cools and She begins reaching out for the Sun in the Spring. All I want to do is trim Her Fingertips a bit. Just so the corner of the garage doesn't get all green and punky and have to be replaced. One more thing to think about.