Category: Series: THE TREE AS SYMBOL

“The Tree” in this series, represents the individual person or our society in general.

Five minutes to midnight refers to the Doomsday Clock. It’s MUCH closer now ! The poor tree here (in this case representing the world and its peoples, of whom we individuals are each a part) has got some kind of blight and has lost its leaves; the trunk has been shored up with bricks. The wheel represents overproduction, misuse of resources and the environment.

I made this maybe a decade ago, when the Doomsday Clock was “only” at five minutes to midnight; it is a lot closer now. Shockingly close! If you want to see how close, check the URL below. Warning: It’s “seconds” now, not minutes! Symbolic seconds, of course.

The Doomsday Clock, in case you don’t remember, represents the danger that scientists feel that the world is in. It started out in 1945 standing for the risk of atomic destruction but now, “The Clock has become a universally recognized indicator of the world’s vulnerability to catastrophe from nuclear weapons, climate change, and disruptive technologies.” The good news is that the clock setting has sometimes gone backwards as well as forwards.

(If you want to know more ): https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/current-time/

Tree of the Heart from The Tree as Symbol Series

“The Tree” in this series, represents the individual person or our society in general.

I am fond of trees for many reasons; I am also very intrigued by the Branching Pattern, of which trees and many other plants are beautiful examples. The branching pattern is found in so many places in Nature, such as in the human body in the circulatory, nervous and respiratory systems.

It shows in geological forms such as the branching of rivers and waterways.

But it is also found in genealogy, in statistical and web pathways and many other ways of organizing information too numerous to mention. Basically, it is about Flow, the flow of physical matter, energy or information, from one place to another.

Here, this Tree is an expression of gratitude to the human heart, both the biological one and the “ heart ” with which we connect with others.

“The Tree” in this series, represents the individual person or our society in general.

“ To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul”
-SIMONE WEIL

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The concept of roots interests me in so many ways :

Root systems display the branching pattern seen in so many places in nature, roots for nourishment, connection, transportation, information . . . survival !

Roots as in origins: I note that about half of my friends, like many Canadians, were not born in Canada, where we live, and thus, at some point in their life were “uprooted”, as was I. Or perhaps our families moved when we very young. For everyone, finding true roots (and for some, “new roots”) and continuing to nourish those roots, is a lifelong process.

Roots as stability: one who is rooted does not get easily blown down by a storm!

Where do you feel rooted, where do you belong : in your body, family, friends, work, community, country, World, practice, faith, Nature, Universe, or…. …? So many possibilities!