The Spiral Giant

Giant Old Snag, a photo by i like bees on Flickr.

I recently was told by someone, describing how another person had described me, that I simply wanted to be a tree. I suppose on some level this is true. I love the bravery of trees, the courage to pick a place to be, to grow, to put down roots and to be part of a community, irrespective of what comes. This to me is one of the great things about forests, and one of the best qualities of people: resilience.

Beyond that, there is a majestic beauty to trees, especially to old and ancient ones, that speaks to me on a profound level. Recently I had the fortune to find one of those wild, rare places full of ancient cedars, unexpected, a secret hidden off of a logging road and entirely unexpected. I know it is a place that I will return to again and again, and I seek to share a portion of it with you through this post, and through this photo. Hard to take photos of trees in the first place and capture the size, the aspect, the context, harder still in rain and with poor light. But this photo perhaps gives a sense...