Trees

C

catalog

Well-known member
This grape juice blog I've been reading has a bit about trees, their roots, rhizomes, verticality versus horizontality

This blog has concerned itself too much with trees, with verticality. One Tree and then Two Trees and the life and knowledge that comes from trees. There is a very different, horizontal logic in the rhizome. No King sits on the Throne. Of course, the process is the same but the metaphors are very different. And metaphors are all we have to go on.

Trees grow from this root system, but without the periodic flowering of trees the roots would also die. Yet all trees extend down to the roots. Only certain trees, certain blossoms, open up to the light. In the rhizome these all "exist" in potential at once. All plots, all colours, all scents, all metaphors, all archetypes. Everything in circulation -- melding, flowing apart, in simultaneity. This is the absolutely synchronous. Space and time at a single point which is not a point. Points are fixed and this never is.
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groupnameforgrapejuice.blogspot.com

Year One

I've been pecking out this blog for a year now and I feel that I've just barely scratched the surface. The hen still scrapes at the dung...
groupnameforgrapejuice.blogspot.com groupnameforgrapejuice.blogspot.com
 
C

catalog

Well-known member
Quite interesting that, how trees contain these two impulses within them, the straight up vertical sense, the spread out root sense.

There's a tree in the park opposite my house which has branches leaning over to one side, really fR, too far, so far it doesn't look right. The branches are actually longer, going across, than the height of the tree. So itooks weird and overbalanced. And this is accentuated in the spring when it blossoms.

Ive tried drawing it, but it never looks right, cos on paper, there's no logic to it
 
C

catalog

Well-known member
Within the pulsation of an artery all civilizations grow and decay. So realized Blake. So realized Milton. So realized Dante and Virgil and Homer. Rome falls nine times an hour. Here is a vast tree that, in times of great thirst, shrinks down to its roots for further nourishment and inspiration. But all magic happens on this level. Hierarchies are always just projected illusions. Odysseus has not yet been cast off the Mountain.

Inspiration and conspiration thus occur at the same location. Swept up in the flows of blood and sap. Anything above the ground is an apparition. Vast pageants, a whole year of ritual, signs and wonders, wars and rumours of wars, digital banality, fish, the end of the world -- mere seasonal foliage. And yet it is all required. Photosynthesis. Structures built of words, of spirit calcified into letters, melt when the foundations are shown to be just as transitory, just as shaky, as everything else.
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Definitely something in this, you look for the high points, the incidents, as markers of what's going on, but there's a whole other picture
 
C

catalog

Well-known member
Went for a walk this morning but had to turn back cos of heavy snow. Saw some amazing trees. The snow on trees is like shadow.

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sus

sus

Moderator
I have a lot of thoughts on trees, both from living among them these past months, and having read this winter Forests: The Shadow of Civilization (Robert Pogue Harrison), a section on forestry practices in 18th C Germany (James C. Scott), and passages on "the tree with the lights" from Dillard's Pilgrim.
 
sus

sus

Moderator
WashYourHands said:
Trees & mythology, trees as safe space archetypes in therapy, trees as climbing frames for kids.

I’ve never hugged one, but I rarely feel as relaxed while walking in woodlands. The lack of vistas hones your sensory focus input range right in, dappled sunlight, the sound your movement makes, being watched by a myriad of other consciousnesses. Rest points are demarcated by certain trees, an oak on a ridged escarpment that offers views & shelter, yews in church grounds to have your lunch under in the summer. Some of Britain”s ancient yews are well worth trying to engineer a day out to, spellbinding entities & locations.
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It's interesting how cultural/situational these connotations and feelings are. Not that anyone knows whether the ancients felt "relaxed" under trees—but as I'm sure you're well aware, for most of human history, woods were dangerous areas to pass through. Robbers, hostile woodland tribes. The Stygian myth of getting hopelessly lost. Whereas clearings were the safe-zones where things were visible, literally enlightened since the sun can penetrate, able to see the sky and all around you, able to build and develop towns in such clearings. There's a baseline safety level needed to feel safe and relaxed, rather than on the alert, in a forest.
 
sus

sus

Moderator
In California we have these enormous sequoias all over the north half of the state. They can get up to a few hundred feet tall, a dozen meters in diameter. You can drive a car through them.

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No doubt they're on the superlatives list
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
suspended said:
Do you guys know about Methuselah? It's the oldest tree in the world, or was til a recent discovery of a different ancient bristlecone pine. These guys run back to the 2000s BC

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There are always some debate about which is the oldest. I think there is one place with like a grove of trees which, I don't really remember or understand properly, but it's something arguably it can be considered one tree and if you do count it that way it's like 9000 years old.
I love to think about what those guys have seen - or would have done if they'd been smart enough to evolve eyes. I also love the thought that there could be others out there, even older. Normally these days when they do find one that is special in some way they tend to keep the location safe, I guess to keep them from being overrun by tourists and stuff, but probably cos some cunt might chop it down. Like in Greece - maybe I said this earlier in the thread - there was a tree where, I don't remember who it was actually, but some fucking famous philosopher had actually given lessons to his students in the shade of its branches (and that blows my mind when you think about it) but somebody got drunk one night and just hacked it down. I just can't understand who could do that, who could carry out an insane act of vandalism and,, in a few minutes, just destroy forever something that had lasted for thousands of years. Stealing it from everyone and from itself. How the fuck can someone do that?
How does it work anyway, is there a limit to their life span or are they (or some of them) essentially immortal if nothing happens to curtail them? I believe there is a jellyfish (or something of that nature) that is, in that sense, immortal, and also I think (weirdly) the queen of a naked mole rat colony has an extraordinary life span if they are not killed by, you know, events. Of course they study them for like anti-aging creams and the lik. Almost unbeatable example of "from the sublime to the ridiculous" there.

"Behold! Nature's unfathomable mystery, the ageless and eternal queen! Let's chuck it in a blender, add a nice smell and sell it to vain people, we will make a killing!"
 
version

version

Well-known member
I've heard that about lobsters, that they don't die of old age and just get bigger and bigger until something kills them. Always wondered whether there's some colossal lobster somewhere at the bottom of the ocean.
 
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