Trees: Bare Bones & Spirit

"Stripped of pretense and camouflage, trees, like human beings, are bare bones and spirit. They grow, stretch, ache, bend and break...the spirit of trees affects our own--we are profoundly interrelated."
~ Joan Klostermann-Ketels, author HumaniTrees


In Winter, we observe the naked essence of nature. The harvest has ended. The fields are dry. Trees, stripped of their foliage, shiver against a gray sky holding a sun that cannot warm them. Yet, trees go on, reflecting back to us the condition of the human spirit. This is what the book, HumaniTrees, reveals in inspirational passages and stunning images. Inspired by this unique book, I am looking at trees--in particular the giant oak in my backyard whose life will soon come to an end (less its brittle to the bone branches come crashing on my roof in the next snowstorm)--in a very different light.

• Does this old oak know what is in store? 
• Will it feel pain when the umbilical cord, connecting the oak to Mother Earth, is severed in a what can only be described as a violent assault? 

HumaniTrees also reminded me of another tree, a Cedar Tree that stood at the center of a garden at my old house in Wethersfield, CT. My husband was supposed to trim the branches while I was out shopping. When I returned home, this is what I found:

In HumaniTrees, each image of a tree is labeled with a single descriptive word to communicate the essence of that tree's spirit:  "primal"  "lonely" "magnificent" "spellbound"  "sisterly" "impish"

An inspirational quote also accompanies the image. For example, I liked this quote that was selected for the tree "Enigmatic"-- 

"The charm of history and its enigmatic lesson consist in the fact that, from age to age, nothing changes and yet everything is completely different." - Aldous Huxley

IT'S YOUR TURN: 

• Use a single term to describe the spirt of this Cedar Tree.
• Include a quote to go along with it? 

Post your response now.