This is the last one I made in the series so far and I made this in December, right before I got the flu and then everything went to the wayside. But I am finally caught up with this post!
This image is definitely a portal. All it needs is a door and it would be a legitimate hobbit home! I wonder how a tree gets hollowed out like that and yet still continues to live and provide life and shelter. When my kids were little and we’d pass this tree on our hikes, they couldn’t help but climb in with our dog. All three of them would fit in there. Now, I don’t think they could all fit. But what is it about a hollow tree trunk that beckons us to fit ourselves into and play and fit into its embrace?
Had to share another snippet from Herman Hesse’s essay on trees that I shared last post:
When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. . . . Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.
A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one’s suffering, though it may seem to be so. It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life. It leads home. Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother.
hmmm….so maybe this image is not just portal, but pathway to home….
Beautiful! I’m having a difficult winter and the bare trees are helping to keep me together. All of my nonfiction reading lately has been about trees. I just can’t get enough.
I’m sorry to hear that you’re going through a hard time right now. What have you been reading?? I always need more books to add to my to-read pile.