it is just the end of pruning time

Where I am, it is time for pruning. Each day if have a few minutes or more, I get to talk with the trees. They are changing right now and for me they might be their most beautiful.

Their branches are craggy and busted from winter storms but the new shoots are here, reaching out in wild directions.

Buds are working their way out, nestled tightly, rich with color and potential.

And their form is visible. I can look at them and feel the beginning of the growth.

I love this for a number of reasons. First is that the part of me that loves form is happy. I can see how they move, imagine the leaves fawning out. I can watch the light slide across them making shadows on the other trees at their side. I can watch as the wind moves through the branches and know some things about their summer lives.

Knowing these things I get to prune and shape these trees into this years shape.

The second and maybe the more exciting to me is that pruning feels like cooking which feels like poems. You begin with something that is one form and by the time you stop your part, it has changed state.

It requires time travel. You have to travel back with the tree to the last summer imagining and holding the way the light moved through it, how much fruit ripened, did the wind get to touch each branch or were there corners where nothing moved?

Also there is the travel to the future and for me right now this part is the most important. After years of pandemic navigation, a new catastrophic war being fought at the expense of so many, and many other parts of this world that weigh heavy, I love that trees are being trees.

They aren’t hopeful, that would be some kind of anthropomorphic projection but they just are. They are becoming. And the becoming includes a spring of migrating birds chatting away on their branches. A summer heavy with fruit and leaves and happy visitors sharing their sweetness. This is my kind of time travel.

I am working on some classes here and was curious to hear what you’d like! Would you like to spend the afternoon learning about poetry and place? How about a series of color and plants where we’d learn to dye, make pigment, and cook using color? What about a project development class for artists where we research, design, and learn how to raise money for the the things we love to do? Any of those sound interesting? Or something else?