Also the Igiri Tree. It's surmised that the common name arises from the rapture one feels when witnessing the tree's cascading panicles of red berries laid bare after the leaves fall, having modestly kept their secret all summer.
But that says nothing about the sense one gets when standing underneath the tree's domed canopy now while the berries are still ripening, nothing about the trees untouchable quality which refreshes the idea of lush internal worlds that turn one's isolation inside out, nothing about the sense that form is music materialized, and that what surrounds us is far more familiar than we know.
3 comments:
Cf. "In early arborescent models the tree is not a dichotomous totality but a proportional relation between the underground and elevated activities; it is also the perpetuation of asymmetries or deformities in the symmetry or form. The non-dichotomous relation between the root and the branch is typified by the trunk as the middle-ground part of the model. Given that the tree is a ratio between underground and elevated activities, it can be infinitely deformed without losing its defining outlines" (Kristen Alvanson, "Arbor Deformia," Collapse IV)--focuses on Ambroise Pare's Des monstres et des prodiges. The whole issue is now available as pdf via Urbanomic.
Thanks, I found much to consider in it.
I passed the White Oak in the Botanic Garden today which was planted by Alfred White, the garden's benefactor, around a hundred years ago. Strangely, this very straight tree's growth seems to be limited to the North, at least from where I was standing, as if it were suggesting a compass. I wonder if this is some sly pruner's work.
Oh how lovely. . .do you ever read Annie Dillard? Your photos often bring her to my mind. You both point out things too brilliant and astonishing to ignore.
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